A Meagan Story

A dear friend shared this story about Meagan, which she was kind enough to allow me to post. 

"Dear Nick,

I know I'm preaching to the choir when I tell you what a precious and loving and lovable (and wildly and innocently funny) woman you have been married to all these wonderful years.  She has set the bar way too incredibly high for any of us to ever reach.  Reading your blog post about the social worker discussing death with Meagan reminded me that I'd not yet shared a priceless story from the day I visited her in the hospital. 

The chaplain (a woman) came in and asked Meagan if she wanted to talk about being terminally ill (apparently earlier in the week a trainee chaplain had been in and Meagan had not felt the need to talk about it to him either).  Well, Meagan said no, she didn't really need to talk to her, but that if her assistant needed some practice he could surely come back and visit.  The chaplain said no, he didn't need to practice on her, but that she would love to have Meagan open up and discuss how she was feeling about her impending death (not verbatim).  Meagan was thoughtful for a moment and then told the chaplain that she's well, not really religious, but she has lots of friends, 129 friends as a matter of fact, so the chaplain assured her it was about spirituality, not about religion, and the chaplain gave Meagan that "it's okay if you haven't been to church for a while look" to which Meagan replied, actually, well, I'm an atheist.  I really don't believe in any of that other stuff.  It took all I had not to crack up.  The chaplain thanked her for her time (she was a lovely woman) and left.  Anyway, when I was leaving the chaplain was in the hall by the elevator and she stopped me and said, you know, she may think she's an atheist but anyone who exudes that much love and has 129 friends that she's worried about while she's the one who is dying has no worry about where she's going when she leaves us.

What a gal, Nick.  What a very special gal."