{"id":4973,"date":"2012-03-26T09:44:21","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T09:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/?p=4973"},"modified":"2013-02-07T12:19:53","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T12:19:53","slug":"angels-of-mersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/?p=4973","title":{"rendered":"Angels of Mersey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caroline Ferguson\u2019s heart had stopped. Nothing was going right. First the doctors had detected that the foetal heartbeat had ceased within the pregnant woman\u2019s womb.\u00a0 Now, with the Caesarian half complete and the dead baby removed and discarded in a dish, the mother\u2019s heart had stopped. The medics sprang into emergency action.<\/p>\n

After several scary moments the doctors restarted her heart and began tidying up. One doctor put a stethoscope to the baby\u2019s chest to confirm he was dead.\u00a0 To his amazement he heard the faintest heartbeat. The child was rushed with a police escort to Alder Hey children\u2019s hospital down the road. Caroline\u2019s husband, Mike, was presented with a terrible dilemma. Should he stay with his unconscious wife or reborn child?<\/p>\n

He hesitated and rushed to Alder Hey. There the staff asked if wanted the baby given an emergency baptism.\u00a0 Had they chosen a name?\u00a0 They had; they had decided their son would be called Charles. But her husband, in his panic, had forgotten the name. \u201cCall him Mark,\u201d he told the chaplain.<\/p>\n

Yet when Caroline came round she was not surprised. While she was unconscious she had felt herself moving slowly down a long white corridor. At the end was a bright sunlight and a face. Then she heard a voice say: \u201cGo back. Mark needs you. Go back.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was so disconcerted that she did not tell anyone. \u201cI never told a soul. I kept it to myself. I never even told my husband,\u201d she now says. \u201cIn fact I\u2019ve never discussed this with anyone before.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then, some 30 years later, her husband died quite suddenly. Four months after that her mother died too. Caroline was, by coincidence, a senior manager at Alder Hey. \u201cOne of my jobs was managing the chaplains,\u201d she says, \u201cI turned to them…\u201d Two years later she decided to become a Roman Catholic. \u201cI don\u2019t know why. I heard no voices, saw no angels, just the voices of the people in the chaplaincy.\u201d Eight years after that she resigned her management job and joined the team as a Catholic chaplain.<\/p>\n

Listening quietly to this story is the Revd Dave Williams. As the hospital\u2019s lead chaplain he is used to hearing extraordinary stories.\u00a0 He and Caroline both feature prominently in Angels of Mersey<\/em> the new BBC2 series about chaplains of all faiths working in hospitals, universities, industry, the fire service and on the streets of the city of Liverpool.<\/p>\n

Dave used to be a local Anglican vicar before becoming a fulltime chaplain. \u201cI slipped up there,\u201d he laughs, drily, \u201csteering Caroline towards becoming a Catholic. But her husband had been a lapsed Catholic and mourning is a hugely complex time. It seemed the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doing the right thing is often not the obvious thing when you are dealing with people in crisis. It also highlight part of the difference between being a vicar \u2013 where the faithful come to you \u2013 and a chaplain, where you go out and encounter a far wider range of people than would ever darken the aisles of their local church. The job is not about converting so much as conversing.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, on his walkabouts on the wards, Dave always wears his dog collar sticking out of his shirt unfastened. \u201cI reckon if I look like a scruffy sod I\u2019m not so intimidating,\u201d he says. Caroline\u2019s badge does not say Chaplain but Spiritual Care Team, for the same reason.<\/p>\n

It is a tough calling. One new chaplain, after seeing his first very seriously ill child, once said to Dave: \u201cI felt totally inadequate in there\u201d. Dave replied: \u201cThat\u2019s how you should feel. This is not a ministry of doing; it\u2019s a ministry of being. Our job is just to be with people in their darkest times, to say to them \u2018I don\u2019t know why this has happened to you\u2019 but you are not on your own.\u201d The team do not seek out members of their own denominations, or even faiths. \u201cWe are all here for everyone,\u201d says Caroline. There is a Muslim corner of the chapel, where the iconography is all portable and therefore removable.<\/p>\n

There are no atheists in intensive care, an old hospital quip has it. It is not, of course, true. But families in hospital find themselves in desperate situations where their spiritual needs come to the fore, possibly for the first time in their lives. \u201cThere are very few parents who aren\u2019t clinging onto something when their child is ill,\u201d says Dave, \u201cand more so when a child has died\u201d.<\/p>\n

The board in the chapel to which relatives can pin impromptu prayers reveals that. These are not the prayers of churchgoers but desperate pleas: \u2018Please let the diagnosis be a good one\u2019. \u2018Please let Conor have a better day today\u2019 \u2018We miss you more each day, little man\u2019. \u00a0The prayer board is the most important thing in the chapel, Dave says simply.<\/p>\n

What do chaplains say when a child dies? When Dave first arrived he felt a cool welcome from the nurses on the intensive care unit. \u201cThen I found that a previous chaplain used to go in there and say that everything was part of God\u2019s plan. If you said that to me when my child had died I\u2019d lamp you,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in that kind of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what does he say? \u201cI always say; \u2018What a beautiful child\u2019, because they always are. And I say: \u2018I have no explanation of why this has happened. I just believe that God is weeping with you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do parents react to words like that? \u201cLook, it\u2019s never right when a little child dies,\u201d Dave says. \u201cPeople are hurting and they are angry. Occasionally you get aggression in the bereavement suite, though it is usually from relatives not parents. But God is big enough to be shouted at. Jesus shouted at God from the cross when he thought he had been abandoned. Jesus said just before his own death: \u2018in this world you will have troubles, but do not be afraid for God is with you\u2019. He won\u2019t get you round the problems but he will get you through them.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a fierce intensity to this place. One couple approached him after their baby died. \u201cWill you do the funeral, Dave, because you really knew her,\u201d they asked. The child was six days old. \u201cShe was a lovely little girl with a lovely smile,\u201d Dave recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the funeral her Grandad said: \u2018Things don\u2019t happen for a reason, they just happen; it\u2019s how we cope with them that matters\u2019. That was so wise from a man who was broken-hearted,\u201d the chaplain concludes. \u201cBut what you also have to hang on to is that most kids in this hospital don\u2019t die; they get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Prayers from the Prayer Board in the chapel at Alder Hey children\u2019s hospital, March 2012<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n