Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time and you are privileged to do the right thing, even if that is not clear at the time.

Today I went to make a routine hospital call. I had become friendly with the chaplain at the hospital and so before going I called and left her a message. I was hoping maybe she could take a break and have coffee. I didn’t hear back and I didn’t even know if she was working.

It was impossible to park. I valet parked the car. I asked the valet if he had seen Karen. He said no. But there she was, meeting me excitedly at the door. “This is nice,” I thought.

Beshert—Destined. This turned out to be anything but a routine hospital call.

Three years ago, this was the first hospital I was called to visit when I arrived in Elgin. A youngish woman was struggling with a recurrence of breast cancer. Her daughter was getting married that year. They had already moved the date of the wedding up to September. Now she was told that morning she may not make it to the wedding. I went. That was the day the pink fire trucks to support breast cancer awareness were at the hospital. I checked in with the chaplaincy office as I always do when I go to a new to me hospital. We made sure that our patient got to go outside to see the fire trucks. Her mood improved immeasurably. She had hope for the first time in apparently weeks.

But as August turned to September it was clear to all that she was slipping. It wasn’t clear that she was going to make it to the wedding. By the week of the wedding we knew that our patient would not be able to attend. We began to make plans to have a pre-wedding in our patient’s hospital room. It was scheduled for a Thursday afternoon just before the wedding rehearsal. The chaplain, now my friend, arranged for a wedding cake and liquid refreshments through concierge services. She decorated the report room. I brought a chuppah. My daughter made a wedding bouquet. She brought a glass in a white organza bag.

The entire wedding party was there, dressed in their wedding attire. All of the nurses stood in the hall. The priest was there. But where was the rabbi? She couldn’t make it out from Deerfield in time. I would have to go this alone.

You see, like our patient who herself was in an interfaith marriage to a Catholic who had raised two Jewish daughters, the bride and groom were embarking on an interfaith marriage and had arranged for a rabbi and priest to co-officiate.

Problem—my contract stated that even though I am not a member of the Rabbinical Assembly I had to uphold their four mandates which include not performing an intermarriage. Was I somehow violating my new contract by doing this death-bed wedding? I hoped not as I chanted the Sheva Brachot, the Seven Blessings of Jewish weddings. I was convinced that it was the right thing to do and I would do it again.

The next day, the “real wedding” happened on schedule but without our patient present. I attended the wedding and sat in the back row. It was lovely in the late Friday afternoon sunlight. I went to lead services at the synagogue and other people continued to enjoy the wedding festivities.

Back at the hospital, our patient’s condition continued to worsen. Late at night, the husband and several members of the congregation went back to the hospital to describe the wedding and to just sit with our patient. She died sometime that night, after midnight, not on her daughter’s wedding day. The funeral was held on Tuesday and I thought that was the end of the story.

No—the staff was so moved by the wedding in the hospital they continued to tell the story, over and over again. Today, the chaplain, my friend, had been asked to present the story as part of the Northwestern Medical’s (Central Dupage is now part of Northwestern Med) monthly leadership team. 300 upper eschelon management medical professionals were gathered in the auditorium to listen to updates about budget, hospice, admissions, etc. The chaplain was the last agenda item called “Patient Experience.” She presented the story above and people were clearly moved. Then she explained that I just happened to be in the building.

Beshert. She called me forward. 300 people stood up and applauded.

Now there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. I choked out the story about the pink fire trucks which had been omitted in the chaplain’s remarks. I thanked them for their commitment to patient experience and going above and beyond.

Beshert? This was my father’s birthday. He had been a Northwestern Medical professor. When I was a little girl I had dreamed of being a medical school professor just like him. I loved to go with him to Northwestern, downtown, and listen to him lecture. Here I was, in a Northwestern lecture hall doing precisely that. On a topic that would have been so very foreign to him. However, he never liked the idea of my being a rabbi. It didn’t fit with his rational, scientific brain. Here were medical professionals who understood the very real connection between the spiritual and the medical. Between mind, body and spirit. And then getting applauded for my “out-of-the-box” creative thinking. Of making a difference in one patient’s life–and the life of her family. When we set out to support our patient, we didn’t do it looking for applause. We did it because we were in the right place at the right time and did the right thing. I would do it again.

As I right this, Frank Sinatra is playing in the background at Starbucks. My father’s favorite. And I cry again.