Leaders & The Cost of Emotional Baggage

The hospital was unusually quiet that bleak January evening, quiet and still like the air before a storm. I threw a stethoscope around my neck and headed for room 712, last room on the hall. Room 712 had a new patient. Mr. Williams. As I entered the room, Mr. Williams looked up eagerly, but dropped his eyes when he saw it was only me, his nurse.

After a moment he looked up from his starched white bed. “Nurse, would you – ” He hesitated, tears filling his eyes. I touched his hand, waiting. He brushed away a tear. “Would you call my daughter? Tell her I’ve had a heart attack. A slight one. You see, I live alone and she is the only family I have.” “Of course I’ll call her.” I said, studying his face. He gripped the sheets and pulled himself forward, his face tense with urgency. “Will you call her right away – as soon as you can?” “I’ll call her the very first thing,” I said, patting his shoulder. I flipped off the light. “Nurse,” he called, “could you get me a pencil and paper?” I dug a scrap of yellow paper and a pen from my pocket and set it on the bedside table.

Mr. Williams’ daughter was listed on his chart as the next of kin. I got her number from information and dialed. Her soft voice answered.

“Janie, this is Sue Kidd, a registered nurse at the hospital. I’m calling about your father. He was admitted tonight with a slight heart attack and... ”

“No!” she screamed into the phone, startling me. “He’s not dying is he?”

“His condition is stable at the moment,” I said, trying hard to sound convincing.

“You must not let him die!” she said.

“He is getting the very best care.”

“But you don’t understand,” she pleaded. “My daddy and I haven’t spoken in almost a year. We had a terrible argument on my 21st birthday, over my boyfriend. I ran out of the house. I – I haven’t been back. The last thing I said to him was, ‘I hate you.’” Her voice cracked and I heard her heave great agonizing sobs. I sat, listening, tears burning my eyes. A father and a daughter, so lost to each other. Then I was thinking of my father, many miles away. It has been so long since I had said, “I love you.

As Janie struggled to control her tears, I breathed a prayer. “Please, God, let this daughter find forgiveness.”

“I’m coming. Now! I’ll be there in 30 minutes,” she said. Click. She had hung up.

I tried to busy myself with a stack of charts on the desk. I couldn’t concentrate. Room 712. I knew I had to get back to 712. I hurried down the hall nearly in a run. I opened the door. Mr. Williams lay unmoving. I reached for his pulse. There was none. “Code 99. Room 712. Code 99. Stat.” The alert was shooting through the hospital within seconds after I called the switchboard through the intercom by the bed.

 “O God,” I prayed. “His daughter is coming. Don’t let it end this way.” The door burst open. Doctors and nurses poured into the room pushing emergency equipment. A doctor took over the manual compression of the heart. A tube was inserted through his mouth as an airway. Nurses plunged syringes of medicine into the intravenous tubing. I connected the heart monitor. Nothing. Not a beat. “Stand back,” cried a doctor. I handed him the paddles for the electrical shock to the heart. He placed them on Mr. William’s chest. Over and over we tried. But nothing. No response. Mr. Williams was dead. A nurse unplugged the oxygen. The gurgling stopped. One by one they left, grim and silent.

When I left the room, I saw her against the wall by a water fountain. Such wounded eyes. She knew. The doctor had told her that her father was gone. I took her hand and led her into the nurses’ lounge. We sat on little green stools, neither saying a word.

“I never hated him, you know. I loved him,” she said.

Suddenly she whirled toward me. “I want to see him.”

I got up and wrapped my arm around her. We walked slowly down the corridor to 712. Outside the door I squeezed her hand, wishing she would change her mind about going inside. She pushed open the door. Janie leaned over the bed and buried her face in the sheets. I tried not to look at her, at this sad, sad good-bye. I backed against the bedside table. My hand fell upon a scrap of yellow paper. I picked it up. It read:

My dearest Janie, I forgive you. I pray you will also forgive me. I know that you love me. I love you too. Daddy

The note was shaking in my hands as I thrust it toward Janie. She read it once. Then twice. Her tormented face grew radiant. Peace began to glisten in her eyes. She hugged the scrap of paper to her breast.

“Thank You, God,” I whispered. I crept from the room and hurried to the phone. I needed to call my father. I needed to say, “I love you.”

This story is originally told in a 1979 edition of Guidepost Magazine.

Leaders... you only have a certain amount of energy and capacity... don’t waste any of it on broken relationships. If you are living with anger (or hurt) toward somebody it is stealing much more for your present and future than you realize. Healthy leaders always choose to “travel light” when it comes to emotional baggage. Do you need to restore a relationship before it’s too late?

Walking the journey with you...

Dan Scarrow

District Superintendent
North Central District of The C&MA