Kate Bradford
This week our country lost a beloved sportsman. I turned on
the radio just after Phillip Hughes had been hit by a cricket ball. Cricket is
not my strong suit, but I soon caught that Phillip was much a loved, precious and
gifted cricketer.
As a hospital chaplain I found myself recalling times in the
Emergency Department and the Intensive Care Unit with families of patients with
head injuries. I could picture the scene in a remote way and felt sorry and
prayed for Phillip, his family, the bowler and his team. A day later in a news
report I caught a comment that referred to Phillip Hughes’ injury as a
catastrophic head injury. I had seen patients with catastrophic head injuries. My
heart sank. Although the radio continued to hope and pray, I felt that I had
already heard the news others still dreaded - he would not wake up.
I was affected by the news in a remote way, aware that I
felt sad and that there seemed to be a lot of sadness in the world. The
accounts felt impersonal, almost as if I was looking through a window onto
others’ lives until I read Justin Langer’s farewell to his friend, ‘Get up
little fella, get up’, published by the Sun Herald.
In a hauntingly beautiful piece, Justin Langer captures the
sense of loss and disbelief at the death of one so alive, the farewell is
punctuated with an increasingly despairing refrain, ‘Get up little fella, get
up’. As I read this farewell, I was transported to the world through the window,
I joined the mourners, I thought how often I have heard fathers, grandfathers
and uncles say these same words, express this same hope for their sons,
grandsons and nephews. Some of the same men wish they could give their lives
for their young, in a sacrifice of love. I had entered the world of those who
grieve, I remembered the families that I had stood with, the coroners, the
ambulance officers, the police, the Emergency Room staff and the social workers
- and all the dashed hopes and dreams. Dreams that the sun might retrace its
course, hopes of life resumed.
I remembered the family with a daughter dying in ICU one
Friday, who were joining the prayer service. The set reading for the day was
Mark 5, about Jairus’s daughter, ‘Jesus took her by the hand and said to her,
“Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”).’ I asked
the chaplain leading the service what did he think he would do? He thought for
a moment and said that it is God’s word for today. The family came, and thanked
him for his words, saying, ‘We can go on, for we know that she will get up
today, she will rise to new life.’
We pray for the miracle cure, we pray for lives
not be cut short, but we pray also that patients will hear the One who has
already given his life for them, the One who says, ‘get up little fella, get
up’, and we pray that they hear and recognise His voice.
