The pager awakens me at 4 a.m. I am sleeping lightly, as I always do when I’m on call, in the basement quarters of the hospital where the medical residents sleep, just down the hall from the morgue. I, however, am not a doctor-in-training; I am a chaplain-in-training.
“There’s an imminent death on 4,” the nurse says. “Seventeen-year-old boy. Complications from the flu.”
Though I am groggy, adrenaline and apprehension kick in. First, of course, there are the circumstances. Seventeen? The flu? But there’s also the fact that I am a middle-aged woman who’s only been doing this job for a few weeks.
Not so long ago, I’d been writing advertising copy, sitting at a computer, wondering if touting the merits of overpriced items was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
The universe obviously was alerted to the fact that I was open to a life-changing opportunity, so I got one.
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