I was 26 when I left my work as a country parson to take up the prestigious position as the Minister Cheltenham Church of Christ Victoria. This Church had the reputation of being a very large and alive Church. But that was a mirage. The reality was quite different as this young country parson was soon to discover. The life of a suburban Minister has some real surprises.

It was the morning after that night when we unpacked our belongings and found ourselves unexpectedly meeting all the Board in the home of our Church Secretary. It was a night we would not forget but what happened the next day made it even more memorable.

We spent most of the morning unpacking the remainder of our belongings, stopping only to answer a constant stream of telephone calls from well-wishers who offered help in various ways. I kept a list of their names by the phone so that later on I could thank them. A number of people came to the door with small gifts like pots of jam or marmalade and flowers to welcome us into the manse. The Church was going out of it’s way to make us welcome. I determined that within the first week of ministry I would visit in their homes every significant family connected with the Board of Elders and Deacons and those people who had special responsibility in the Church, like the Sunday Superintendent. Before we had left the Board’s welcome the night before I had made arrangements to visit four families that afternoon.

Shortly before lunch the telephone rang. To my delight it was my old minister from Box Hill, Mr. W. A. Wigney. Ever since we had left to train in the ministry nine years previously he and his wife had been most encouraging and his call was one of encouragement. But after the usual best wishes for our future his voice took on a serious note: “I don’t know whether you know it or not but Elsie Kearnan is my niece. You may not have met them yet but they are wonderful people and great workers in your church”. I interrupted him: “Yes I have met them already. Last night Merlin and Elsie Kearnan were at a welcome we attended at the home of our Church Secretary and his wife. I remember both of them quite well. Elsie is quite a vivacious person”.

Mr. Wigney continued “Well she isn’t at the moment. Last night, apparently some time after your meeting, she collapsed at home and is in a coma. Merlin is with her in the hospital now. I understand she is in a very serious coma with a brain tumour. They say there is not much hope of her ever recovering. I thought I would let you know so you could get to the hospital straight away and visit them.”

Mr. Wigney then stopped talking like a concerned relative and started talking like an older pastor giving advice to a young man. He continued “If you get to see her straight away and look after her family I’m quite sure the people round about will get to hear of this and the message will go out that in your first day or so of ministry you showed remarkable pastoral care for people. That will be noised through the parish before you know it and people will begin to respect you as their pastor. I have just rung to ask if you would visit her but more than that I wanted you to get off to a good start in your ministry.”
I thanked him and immediately went and changed clothes telling my wife what had happened and indicating that I would go to their home and see what was happening to the kids before going to the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. I would then go and visit the people I had already made arrangements to visit, before returning home for tea. My first day looked as though it was going to be one of heavy visitation.

I went round to Merlin and Elsie Kearnan’s home in Barclay Street. I wondered what had happened to their two young children if Merlin was with Elsie in the Intensive Care Unit. The door was opened by a small concerned looking older man. It was Elsie’s father. He introduced himself to me and told me the story of how she had collapsed and how Merlin was unable to arouse her. In the early hours of the morning the ambulance had taken her to the Intensive Care Unit of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Merlin had rung him to come over and look after the kids. He was a widower and was well used to looking after himself and it seemed to me that he had got the family up and going well. After praying with him and the two children who were obviously extremely distressed about the condition of their mother, I asked if I could use their phone. I realised the family would need a great deal of support.

I was not sure who could do the job best, but I remembered the Church Treasurer and his wife as being very competent and well organised people. Andy Goodman and his wife Thel had all the signs of well organised people with a great deal of commonsense. I did not realise it in the heat of that moment but I had been guided to make the best possible decision. Thel Goodman was an incredible woman of great organising skills and capacities. I rang her and told her what had happened to Elsie Kearnan. She was shocked but instantly knew that something needed to be done. I asked if she could arrange a roster of women in the Church to cook casseroles and to get meals prepared for the family and to deliver them hot each night to Mr. Brown, Merlin and the kids so they would not have to worry about getting meals. I then asked if she could also organise for one or two ladies to be on standby so that if Elsie was going to be in hospital for some time there might be some ladies willing to come into the house to make beds and tidy up and keep the household clean so that Merlin would not have to worry about doing anything in the house and he could concentrate on going to the hospital, looking after his kids and going to work.

I had known of people with brain tumours, and this could be a long drawn-out period of suffering. The family would need all the help they could get. I then rang the four families I had arranged to visit that afternoon and told each of Elsie’s condition in hospital, indicating that I would be visiting them but the time would be later in the afternoon than I had originally indicated. I had started off this ministry determined to keep my visitation in order and so had set times for visiting people in their homes. It was a practice I would develop over the years but right at the beginning I was not to know that I had set myself an impossible schedule.

I drove immediately into the Royal Melbourne Hospital. I had visited here every week during the eight years I was working as a pastor to the slums and I knew the places where I could get parking in the grounds. I also knew where the Intensive Care ward was. I went immediately to the ward and spoke to the Sister in Charge at the Nurses Station. I explained that I was the minister of Mrs. Elsie Kearnan and asked if I could go and pray with her. “Oh you’ve just missed her husband. He’s been here since last night and we’ve just sent him home. Poor dear, he was looking quite ragged after being with her for ten hours. I told him that there was nothing that could be done and that he ought to go home and look after his children. He only left about half an hour ago.
You can go and visit her if you like but she is in a coma and from what I have heard from the doctors, there is not much hope that she will recover. It is very sad. I’ve seen quite of few of these cases. The best thing the family can do is just get on with living and accept the fact that she will never recover and that death is probably not far away.” The rather chatty charge nurse walked me down the corridor and indicated inside the Intensive Care Unit a room on it’s own filled with monitors, screens and medical equipment. Elsie Kearnan was lying on the bed with tubes going into her body from every direction. A ventilator was pushing air through a wide tube that was down her throat. There were another couple of tubes up each nostril, other tubes draining away from her body. There were tubes in her veins and all sorts of wires coming from underneath the sheets to monitoring equipment. The Intensive Care Unit was really taking care of her but it was obvious that nothing was being done. She was simply being monitored in her coma.

When I first saw her I received a tremendous shock. Only last night I was talking to a vivacious woman. Now she was lying rigid in a bed unable to move any part of her body, her eyes, hands or speech. Most of the hair on her head had been shaved off. There were a series of blue lines drawn as if by a ruler across her skull. I realised she had been through a whole series of x-rays. The Sister pulled out a chair “You may as well sit down. There is no point in standing. And there is not much point in staying long, but say your prayers and all we can do is hope that she will respond somehow.” And with that she left me.

For sometime I just sat in the chair looking at the totally immobile body of Elsie Kearnan. I had been in this position once or twice before when I felt absolutely helpless. I also knew that what Elsie needed more than anything else was our prayers. I prayed silently for a while and then reached into my side pocket and pulled out my New Testament. I thought I would read to her some verses of comfort and hope. On impulse I took up her hand and held it, it was cold and unresponsive. I decided I should say something to her. “Elsie, this is Gordon Moyes. We met together last night. It was a wonderful evening and I am dreadfully shocked to see you in hospital today. But I want you to know I have been and visited your family. The kids are OK and your father is looking after them. He seems to be coping quite well. I have rung up one of your friends, Thel Goodman and asked her to organise tea for tonight. She tells me that you played tennis together. She is a very wonderful person and I know that while you are here you don’t have to worry about getting meals for Merlin and the kids. Thel Goodman will make all the arrangements and look after them and she’ll probably organise someone to make sure the beds are made. Everything in the house is OK, so you need not worry about anything at home.”

I felt rather stupid sitting there holding her hand and talking to someone who had no response and was deep in a coma but I decided that I should talk to her and tell her the events of the day. I continued “Elsie, I had a call this morning from your uncle Mr. Wigney. Did you know he was my minister when I was growing up? He and Alma are wonderful people and they have helped me in our life immensely. He has given me a real sense of the value of prayer and on occasion like this Elsie I know that he and other people are praying for you everywhere. I am wondering if you would like me to pray with you now? I will read a passage of Scripture first and then pray. Is there a passage of scripture you like more than any others? Would it be alright if I read the 23rd Psalm? Perhaps there is something in that you might remember from your childhood. I often think the words “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for though art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me’ are some of the most incredible words in the English language. They tell us that no matter where we are, God is with us and that He is with us to support us and bless us.”

I opened my New Testament to the back where it had a section of Psalms, read the 23rd Psalm, and then still holding her hand prayed for her, her husband, her children, her father, for the doctors and nurses in the hospital and all who would be working with her.

I finished the prayer and placed the cold immobile hand back on the other one. I was conscious then there was someone behind me. I turned. There was a Doctor in a white gown and beside him the Senior Sister from the Nurses Station. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t hear you come in”, I mumbled some apology. “I am her Minister and I was just having a prayer with her.” The kindly Doctor looked at me with a warm smile. “I am Professor Jackson from the Neuro Surgery Unit here at the Royal Melbourne and also at Melbourne University. We actually came in a little while ago and I’ve been listening to you talking to Mrs. Kearnan. I am wondering if I might have a chat with you.” He moved backwards, to indicate he wanted to talk with me outside in the corridor.

I instantly responded wondering what I had done wrong and feeling rather foolish speaking to her the way I was, not knowing that they were standing just behind me. We stood together in the corridor and the Professor took off his glasses and wiped them with his handkerchief. “I was most impressed young man with the way you were speaking with her. Frankly her options are very limited at this moment and there is very little chance that she will recover. The tumour is in a most difficult part of the brain. Unfortunately it is inoperable. If I were to go in after that tumour I would cause so much damage to other parts of the brain that what would be left would be indeed worse than what she has at this moment. We have made very thorough x-rays of her tumour and all I can say is that it is amazing that she has lived a normal life to this moment without suffering seizures. I am afraid there is nothing that we can do for her. I only told her husband a short while ago, that everything now depended upon people’s faith and prayer. It was beyond anything that I could do. But strangely enough what you were doing is exactly what the doctor ordered.” He smiled as he made this half-joke.

“You see I have a feeling that you can help her wake from the coma. It is quite possible that she can hear you even though she cannot respond in any way. I was quite glad that you were holding her hand. We’ve had no stimulus response from her whatever, but that does not mean to say some part of her brain isn’t registering what’s happening. She possibly could feel you even though there is no way she could respond to you. And when you were talking about her children, her husband, and making arrangements about meals I thought that was very good because they’re the things she would be worrying about. It is quite possible for her brain to be functioning normally on these issues but totally unable to respond in any way. We want to treat her as if she is functioning normally even though we don’t know of any response. She may not be yet in a persistent vegetative state but I do know that unless we stimulate her she certainly will be.”

“There is a place in the United States where they do a lot of work with people like Mrs. Kearnan. It is the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential. In the medical journals I’ve read a number of articles about how to help arouse a person from this kind of coma. There is absolutely nothing we can do from the outside.
I have investigated every possibility but there is nothing I can do to get into that part of the brain which is damaged and to restore it. However, we can comfort her, and keep her alive and monitor any changes. If there is to be any recovery at all she must do it herself from the inside. The only way she can do that is if her working brain cells are stimulated. The best way to stimulate them is to surround her with familiar people and caring friends. Obviously you know her very well and your visit here today was quite providential. I would ask if you would come quite regularly.”

I interrupted at this point, “As a matter of fact I don’t know her quite well. I have only shifted into the manse yesterday and I met her for the first time last night. She is one of my Church members and now a person for whom I care, that’s why I have come.”

He put his arm on my shoulder in a very fatherly way, “Well I think it is marvellous that on your first day you should start off on a case like this. This is what ministry is all about, getting with people, praying for them, doing practical things to help their families, helping people be made whole and taking part in the healing process. You know the brain is capable if it is stimulated in the right way. I believe her brain cells may have the capacity to recreate some of the damaged functions and under the right environment we might see her recover. I can certainly tell you that if she doesn’t have the right stimulation and the right caring environment then there is nothing at all we can do and she will stay in the vegetative state until she dies. But if you and your colleagues can organise a roster of relatives and friends then maybe by doing what you’ve been doing to her, talking to her, assuring her that all is well, giving her a sense of hope and the future, telling her about the progress of her family and that she need not worry about anything at home, praying with her and reading the Scriptures and doing anything else that is familiar to her then I am quite sure you will help her faith and hope, and help her recover.”

He shook hands and with the Charge Sister move off down the corridor away from the Intensive Care Unit. It had been quite an amazing interview. I decided I would go back into the room and put into practice what he said. I addressed her again. “Hello Elsie, this is Gordon Moyes. I’ve just been talking to the Doctor and he tells me that we need to pray for your recovery and that it is OK for many of your friends and relatives to come and visit you. I am going home now to see Merlin and we will organise some visits. Just before I go let me have a quick prayer with you again.” I took her hand and prayed, asking God to continue to bless her and make her well and to help her back to us and to her home and family.

As I was driving back towards Cheltenham I was amazed how long all of this had taken and I had promised four families that I would visit them at certain times this afternoon. I called into the first one. They had been waiting for more than two hours. “I guess you haven’t had any lunch. Tell us all about Elsie. Sit down here. What would you like to eat? I’ve got some fresh sandwiches for you and I’ve made a tea cake.” The food was most refreshing. I went then to the second family and as I walked in the woman of the house said, “Oh you poor dear. You’ve been busy all morning, I bet you haven’t stopped for lunch. I’ve made some nice sandwiches for you and I’ve got some fresh scones. I hope this will fill the vacant spot”. I left that house and went onto the third house where they had also been waiting more than two hours. “Come in, it is a delight to see you. Tell us about Elsie. My wife has just made afternoon tea. We guess you haven’t had lunch, so we have put some extras out.” I went to the fourth house. They did exactly the same, but by now it was dark and I had to get home.

The burden of four afternoon teas was beginning to weigh very heavily as I got out of the car and went in and kissed my wife. It was only then that I realised that I had rung everybody else telling them I would be late but had forgotten to tell my wife. The meal was in the oven keeping hot and my wife told me that she had to give the kids their tea and put them to bed. Our kids had gone to bed without me saying good night to them. I had not realised that this was part of the new regimen of a suburban ministry. My wife had prepared a magnificent tea. All a man could do was to be grateful.

As we sat at the table she was wise enough to let me get a few things off my chest before bringing out her problems of the day. She said “I’ve been getting calls all afternoon from women wanting to know what size casserole they should make. I haven’t a clue what they are talking about. Some people have said they would deliver them to our place and we could take then around. What are they talking about?” I realised that Thel Goodman had been hard at work but I would have to communicate much more quickly with my wife if this problem was to be overcome. Why couldn’t people just act on their own initiative? Why couldn’t they use their commonsense and just cook what they thought would be right for a family plus a grandfather living in looking after kids? Why did they have to ring the manse and give us details of what they were doing? However, the Boys Club awaited. I had to do two devotions that night with two different groups. It was late at night and we were in bed before we even got round to talking about what had been happening during the day.

That wasn’t the end of the story of Elsie and Merlin Kearnan. I went every second day to the Intensive Care Unit and chattered away with Elsie in her vegetative state. I talked about the people I was meeting in the Church that she knew, and the homes I was visiting. I told her all about the first Service I took and my induction into the ministry. Every time I held her hand and prayed. I did this every second day from the 11th January until the 11th February when a most incredible thing happened.

The story of Elsie Kearnan is full of incredible things and this was only one in a long line of God’s goodness. On the 11th February I was just about to leave the ward in which she was lying with all the tubes and pipes and monitoring continuing with Elsie still totally unchanged in the deepest of comas. I was holding her hand and I was praying. I finished up the prayer “in Jesus name, AMEN”. As I said “Amen” Elsie squeezed my hand. I tell you, I nearly fell off the chair with shock! It was totally unexpected.

I held her hand even more tightly and said “Elsie, did you squeeze my hand when I said Amen? Squeeze it again if you did.” She squeezed it a second time. We had communication established. With absolute delight I lent over and kissed her on her forehead. “You sweetheart, stay here for a moment, I want to go and get the nurse and the doctor.” As I moved rapidly out of the room I realised what a stupid thing I had said. Of course she was going to stay there, there was nothing else she could do!

That was the first sign that Elsie was recovering. By the beginning of June she was back home, still undertaking intensive therapy. Her left leg was dragging, she had to wear a calliper to keep her toes up. Her left arm was paralysed and she was unable to use it. Her speech was slurred as if by the effect of some massive stroke but her brain was totally agile. She started re-learning all the activities around the house and very soon was back at Church. The big change was in Merlin! In the first week of Elsie’s coma Merlin’s hair changed from black to white. The two young kids also changed and became much more independent and in some ways more withdrawn than the average children. They became a very close knit family, dependent upon each other. Mr. Brown moved in permanently while his daughter went through all of her post recovery therapies.

Elsie and Merlin Kearnan were an integral part of that Church’s ministry over the next years. Merlin led the boys club with a great deal of vigour and enthusiasm and Elsie was present at all of our Church activities although still limited with an arm and a leg that would not function as before. She would never play tennis again but everything else within the family life eventually got back to normal. The day came when Merlin sat in my study and told me that now her recovery was as complete as it would ever be, he had decided to commence training for the ministry and that he and Elsie desired to spend the rest of their lives serving as a minister of the Gospel. He did that and I was one of those people who laid hands on his head four years later at his graduation. Since that time he has served in an outer suburban growing Church where the work was as demanding as ever and today still continues to serve with his wife in a quiet country Church in western Victoria.

Elsie Kearnan’s recovery from that coma and all associated with it burned itself into my mind. I had learned a valuable lesson and ever since have always prayed and read out loud with people who are in comas. Maybe the restriction is within us. It is our lack of faith and hope in the way we speak to people that limits their recovery. The potential of the brain is beyond our capacity to understand. I do know we can limit its recovery. My first case of pastoral care in the Cheltenham Church of Christ was one of tremendous significance.

That night in my study I spent some time in my study writing up my journal and looking out of the window at the never ending stream of cars stopping at the traffic lights at the corner of Nepean Highway and Chesterville Road, that wide intersection that was dominated by the lovely white Church with the high white tower noting down the events of another day as a suburban minister.

GORDON MOYES

Thursday, 7th April, 2005, 7:39 pm | A Suburban Minister, Australian Short Stories