Thursday, July 29, 2010

yarmulke

In addition to the times when wearing a kipah leads to serious discussions or requests for additional support (or "courtesy visits" as one of my fellow chaplains refers to them,) there are the unplanned moments of humor.

  • I'm sitting at the nurses' station at an unnamed nursing home working on my visit notes. A patient (not one of mine) comes up to talk with me. The back story, which I find out later, is that she noticed the kipah and asked one of the facility nurses who I was. The nurse told her: "That's the rabbi."    
    • Patient: "Oh. You're Jewish." Me: "Yes." Patient: "I thought you just liked to wear doilies on your head."

  • I'm visiting a patient in a "memory unit" in an assisted living. A staff member comes up to me and notes that several of the women have noticed my headcovering. They are wondering where I'm from. A quick series of responses runs through my mind. I can't say, "I'm from "We Care For You Hospice" because that would violate HIPPA rules and patient privacy. I don't really want to say, "I'm from the "We Care For You Agency" for similar reasons. (Although I wear a name badge and most of the staff know where I'm from.) I could say, "I'm from 'Hometownville'," but I don't really think that's what they're asking. So I go for what seems to me to be the simplest answer:
    • "Just tell them I'm a rabbi." Staff member: "What?" Me: "I'm a rabbi." The staff member walks over to the residents and says: "She's from A-rabb-ia."
To be perfectly fair, in the first case it was a particularly lacy, open crocheted kipah. And wearing a doily is sometimes a fashion choice on the dementia unit.

At the second facility they were playing Christmas music ("O Holy Night" when I walked in) even though it was a hot, late spring day.  I reported to my colleagues afterward that apparently I was only "alert and oriented x 1" that day. Which is to say, I knew my name, but it seemed that I didn't quite know the date (December? May?) or the place ('Happy Dawn Assisted Living'? A-rabb-ia?)

Some days all you can do is laugh.

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