Oh, that you would rend the heavens!

While working as a chaplain at Saint Anne's Hospital in Fall River, I was called to the emergency room at 2:00 am on a Friday night. A young man had overdosed on heroin which was making a big comeback to the streets of the Spindle City. The hospital staff wanted me to be there when the father came in to identify the body.

The doctors, nurses and security personnel were noticeably tense as they wanted for the father to arrive. Though they were used to sudden, tragic deaths, this particular overdose had them shaken.

About fifteen minutes after I arrived, we heard the whoosh of the automatic doors leading into the foyer of the emergency room. The humid night air rushed in like a gasp as the father walked in.

We were ushered by the security guard into a room where the young man lay cold and motionless on a gurney, a white sheet covering all but his yellow, chalky feet.

The nurse asked the father if he was ready. When he nodded, the nurse pulled the sheet up so only he could see the face. We all held our breath, the hum of the monitors the only perceptible noise.

The father said, "You finally did it! Good riddance!", then turned his back on the body.

A shocked "uh-oh" look came on the nurse and security guard. We were expecting grief and got anger. Of course, grief is just anger with claws, at least in situations like these. The difference is that with grief you can put your hand on the person's shoulder or hold his hand while he cries. With anger, you have to say something. So the nurse gave me a look as if to say, "You take it from here now, Father."

Right on cue I said, "He put you through a lot, didn't he."

"Oh Father, you don't know," he replied. "What I went through, all for him to end up like this!"

He went on to tell us about the sleepless nights waiting for him to come home, driving around the city trying to find him, bailing him out of jail, mopping up his vomit and washing his urine-drenched clothes. This man had given another man life and watched him throw it away.

His teeth unclenched, his shoulders rolled down, and his fists relaxed. It was all over now. And he knew that this was the only way it could possibly have ended.

I was reminded of a mother whose son was also a heroin addict. She flatly told me with cold resignation that she prayed that her son would just die. By no means was she a heartless woman. She just couldn't bear to see her son in such an undignified state anymore. It gives you some inkling of how devastating this addiction is to individuals and to families.

We stood in silence around the lifeless body. Then the nurse told the father how sorry he was for his loss and that they had done all they could to save him. The father said, "Thank you," and picked up a white plastic bag with his son's few belongings - an empty wallet and a watch.

I invited the father to a room that had been set aside for pastoral counseling. The anger was gone, so we could just sit together in silence. He decided to go through his son's wallet and found a health insurance card with the words, "Your health is important." He showed me the card, scoffing at the irony. Then he put his hands on his knees, stood himself up and thanked me with a sigh. "Well, I've got to go tell his mother." After going to take one more look at his son, he parted the automatic glass doors and was gone.

I thought about that man for some reason during Mass this weekend. Maybe it was the, "You do not know the day or the hour," or perhaps it was, "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down with the mountains quaking before you!" I wondered if joy and hope ever came back into that man's life.

Then I trembled when I realized that God had used me to "rend the heavens" and to be present to a man in his tragedy.