My work as a chaplain at Toronto General Hospital included caring for those waiting for heart transplants. Some waited for many months. Everything that they did or ate was recorded, even the number of grapes because they contain fluid and fluid intake had to be strictly monitored. Finally, a heart became available for one of my patients whom I had been seeing regularly. His family was overjoyed. But, after the surgery, this gentleman was unbearably depressed. His wife and children could not understand. He had been given a gift, the greatest gift. They were struggling because they had believed that he would be ecstatic. He would heal and then finally come home.
I, too, was at a loss. Then I learned that there are biological reasons for the depression. It has to do with brain chemicals. The biological part of the depression could be helped with drugs. But there are spiritual issues, too. For him to live, to come home to his loved ones, someone had to die. It is very difficult to wish death on someone in order to receive a heart and know that some other family is going to be mourning. One can become heart-sick. How does one rationalize the death of one to save another? I don’t think it is possible. I don’t think one can ease this type of pain, logically. When psycho-social sciences and medicine can’t heal, religion can help. I have yet to find a medical term that deals with forgiveness, especially forgiveness of oneself, first, for having prayed or wished for the death of another. A belief in a forgiving God makes the process possible.
