The days pass and I realize that God's love is my strength and energy to fling myself into taking tender care of patients
By Sister Trinh Vuong
I join hundreds of priests and religious in voluntarily looking after Covid-19 patients at field hospitals and quarantine centers as the stubborn Delta variant outbreak infects numerous people and spreads across Vietnam.
The first day is a long time for me. I am terribly shocked when I see close up patients on ventilators struggling for life alone without any loved ones. I slightly shiver at the sudden thought that life is extremely fragile and I myself am also facing death and the risk that I may be infected.
There is a time when I wonder whether I need my head examined as I have chosen a job that is extremely dangerous because, while thousands of people are trying to leave the dangerous pandemic-stricken areas, I enter the most dangerous places.
The days pass and I realize that God’s love is my strength and energy to fling myself into taking tender care of patients. Now I have already dispelled fear and apprehension. Instead, I learn and understand a language — not of words but of love — that is patients’ tears.
It seems that in the hospital healthcare givers look the same in full protective gear from head to toe and patients fail to notice whoever they are. However, the wordless language of the servants’ love is still clearly visible enough for patients to recognize them as people of God.
There are quite normal gestures of wiping their bodies and feeding them, but here they become a non-verbal language that conveys love to others. As the language of love, it can only be answered with love: tears. I have a private conversation with a patient and both of us understand that this life is so beautiful and worth living.
” I stand in silence with overflowing happiness that a person wants to know about God “
“You have a heart of gold. If I am still alive, I will surely repay you,” the patient says.
“Happy I could be of help. I volunteer to serve you. I’m a nun following God.”
And then tears and choking: “Please ask … God … for me.”
I feel like I was suddenly stopped for a moment since at that time my academic knowledge of God and theology went away, but only silence remains. I stand in silence with overflowing happiness that a person wants to know about God.
I suddenly replied: “Please try to get good rest. My God loves you so much that he sends me to take care of you.”
The short conversation generates high motivation in me to continue serving my brothers and sisters. I know that God’s love always fills my life. God is not far away but right in our real life that we sometimes forget.
If we have an opportunity to live with our loved ones by our side, whether we are sick or healthy, let us take advantage to give one another the language of love — smiles, caring looks, words of encouragement and the like. I imagine scalding tears rolling down their cheeks for the happiness they have received as their perfect expression of love and gratitude.
Thank God for giving us a life to live and to love even amid the prolonged pandemic. Even if we are short of material needs causing danger to our lives or disorienting us in the future, we are still able to love other people and accept their tender loving care.
