Divine Farewell

A block or so from our house, an old hospital is being dismantled. Built fifty years ago, Divine Redeemer Memorial Hospital had been the jewel of this small, suburban community. Forward-thinking, hard-working, determined residents pledged their own money to bring the hospital to a river town made prosperous by busy stockyards. The Sisters of the Divine Redeemer were persuaded to provide the administrative know-how.


Looking into a twisted cross-section of the half-demolished building - it's noisier than I expect. The cranes and backhoes sit quietly at the end of the day, but the building itself creaks and moans as if shifting from one foot to another — impatient for morning. It's easy to imagine the life and death those rooms once held—children born, diseases fought, bodies repaired, lives lost, meals served, floors mopped, careers launched, heroes made, tears shed, prayers lifted. 

There were brushes with fame—the hospital was one location for the filming of the movie “Grumpy Old Men” and several others. Years ago, local hockey legend, Herb Brooks, broke his arm playing semipro hockey at a local ice rink and eventually married the young nurse who cared for him at Divine Redeemer that night.

Most recently, the building served as a long-term care facility. My last visits were to a much-loved mother and grandmother surrounded by devoted family at the end of her life. While dying, the dear woman was wrapped in a quilt pieced together from a lifetime of memories. The staff was kind, respectful, even sad as they hovered near the last goodbyes.

Finally, our son's school project on a significant landmark in our neighborhood had us poking around the old hospital and local library asking questions, reading through old news articles, taking photographs and interviewing former patients and employees. After the care center was closed, the empty building was used to train specialized police units—mock hostages were rescued, search warrants executed, battering rams and equipment tested. Since then, silence.

Too expensive to renovate, the hospital is being leveled and the site scoured, readied for a future use that remains uncertain. I would love to hear any stories you have of what has been described as “a wonderful little hospital” and I wait with anticipation for what the future brings.

When former employees gathered for a farewell ceremony, one of the nuns spoke of the cherished relationships and sense of community the hospital fostered - important things that outlive the bricks and mortar. "It is just a building," she said, but it was certainly a building that breathed life into this community and leaves a sense of loss as it takes its final breaths. 

A wonderful, wobbly world

Not to be overly dramatic, but there are times when the world seems loosed from its moorings. Wobbly.

Tomorrow our daughter will spend part of the day shadowing another student at what soon will become her new school. Tomorrow she will begin to imagine herself as a seventh grader -  negotiating the new teachers, new spaces, new peers, and new subjects of junior high school. Of course she'll return to her sixth grade classroom for several more weeks, but it won't be the same once she begins to imagine the promises and pitfalls the future holds.

My imagination has been working overtime in reverse - the art projects and homework, fractions and fossil-hunting field trips, concerts and conferences of elementary school. I have not forgotten her first day of kindergarten when, as scared and fiercely independent as she is today, she turned and forcefully whispered, "Can you leave now?" The world was wobbly that day too - so full of both possibilities and loss as she left us standing in the doorway to walk into her new life.

A new school, a new job, a new relationship or one that ends, a devastating diagnosis, a great victory, a crushing disappointment -- loose, wobbly moments when who we are and who we will be can suddenly part ways, moving in new directions.

My prayers on a day that feels a little too wobbly are many: for young people looking for identity and belonging, for college graduates searching for work in an unwelcoming job market, for adult children holding the hand of a dying parent, for spouses who double as caregivers, for those who have decided to let cancer run its course untreated, for couples taking steps toward the altar and marriage. I am grateful for a God whose love is steadfast in the midst of uncertainty, whose spirit moves into the loose spaces that change creates and for those who help us to find our footing.