I had a “first” yesterday. I was invited to provide an in-service for an agency that provides home and hospice care to ill people. The audience was some of their registered nurses and nurses aides.

In order to get ready for it I wrote a former hospital chaplain and asked him what the must-read books were on the subject of chaplaincy care. He gave me a couple of titles, one of which I ordered. I took notes and reproduced some of the charts.

I was nervous about the in-service for two reasons. First, I had never done this before, and it was out of my expertise. Second, I figured all these nurses could teach me a thing or two on the subject of grief care.

On Wednesday I had a great idea. I decided to use selected quotes from the correspondence I had with a dying friend to illustrate what I was going to talk to them about. I had 44 pages of correspondence, so there was plenty to draw from.

I spoke for about 40 minutes. I told them at the conclusion, “None of you threw anything at me so it must have been okay.” I think it was a good refresher for the group, and it helped them to get to know me a bit better.