How to process the pandemic death toll? For one hospital chaplain, it means also remembering relatives left behind.
Like any hospital, Providence Holy Cross Medical Center is filled with operating rooms, examining rooms, nurses’ stations and labs. But to Kevin Deegan, the hospital’s senior chaplain, it also contains sacred places — places where profound, heartbreaking and loving things occurred as the pandemic took hold.
“The stairwell is the only place that wasn’t affected by COVID,” he says. “It’s the space in the hospital that you can forget — intentionally forget what has been happening. And for that small moment, coming up the stairs — the ability to forget and not have to think about COVID — can be a sacred space.”
Left: Chaplain Kevin Deegan and Julio Valladares hold hands on Jan. 12. Right: Deegan places his hands on the chest of a patient as he prays virtually with the man’s family. The grandson of the patient called out to his grandfather to wake up. Kilani asked if she wanted to see her father. Yes, she said. Kilani, standing at the entrance of the room, held up her phone so the daughter could see and talk with her dad.
Next, we find ourselves outside the room where Bob Harris died. “This is one of those sacred rooms,” Chaplain Kevin says. “It was one of the first times we were able to get family in during the pandemic.” “It was tragic. It was beautiful. It was hard,” Chaplain Kevin says. “It was all those things together.”Left: Chaplain Kevin Deegan prays with Marylou Samora, 72, on Jan. 12. Right: Deegan kneels as nurse Cristina Marco leans in to listen to Domingo Benitez.The strips of tape marked, in a way, how the coronavirus had upended life at the hospital. You could go past the tape only if you wore protective gear.
“When the line was up the hallway, they could feel defeated as they arrived at work. And when it would recede, we would all feel good again. Something insignificant like a piece of tape would represent where they were.”
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