BEING RIGHT IS SOMETIMES WRONG

There have been times in my ministry when I have been visiting a parishioner in the hospital who was very, very ill. And while I was at that person’s bedside, the doctor came in to speak to him or her. When I tried to excuse myself so that the doctor could have private time with the patient, the doctor often said, “No, Father, you can stay.” And so I stayed. What I heard when I stayed was sometimes very honest but not what I thought should have been said.

Those were the times when the doctor was brutally factual with the patient. He cut no quarters, did not soften what he said and he certainly did not tell anything but the truth. “The cancer is malignant and inoperable and you only have a few weeks to live,” he said. “The paralysis in permanent and will never be lessened.” I’ve heard others in a similar vein. None provided any hope for the patient.

As a priest I deal in hope. Without hope, we cannot go on. We will very easily simply give up if we believe all hope is lost. However, even if that hope is only a small sliver, at least it is that, and with that we can go on. When I heard those hopeless diagnoses that came from those doctors’ lips, I believed while they may have been right in what they were saying, they were wrong to say it.

Yes, we need to know the truth. But when the truth will not change anything, when the truth will not allow us to hang on waiting for a miracle, then why destroy another’s bit of hope? Not only does offering a bit of hope help the patient, it also helps the family as well. They need a bit of hope too even if they know they are really hoping against hope. It is human nature to do so.

Years ago I attended a local ministerial gathering where the featured speaker was the hospital chaplain. He said, rather bluntly, “You know, don’t you, that the doctors think we’re just a bunch of clowns.” At first I was very insulted. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe it was a compliment even if back-handed. For is not a clown someone who lifts up spirits, who, in truth, is a symbol of hope?

But, then, aren’t we all? Is not that one of the responsibilities we have as Christians, to be bearers of hope, to lift up spirits? Yes, there are times when we are called to tell it like it is. But there are also times when we don’t have to do so. There are times when telling the truth only makes things worse, when being right is the wrong time.

Those times don’t happen all that often, thankfully. I didn’t take the doctors to task who were brutally honest with their patients. I just wish they had not been so, that they could have found words of hope; and if they could not have done that, they could have at least understood that that moment was the wrong time to be right. There may never be a right time, but there are times when it is the wrong time to be right.