On Thursday, I was part of a mass casualty incident drill. Apparently, an awful storm came through our area. A crowd of people ended up at each of the Emergency Departments I work in. Family members of those people came to the two Family Reunification Centers that our chaplains helped run.

I had conversations with a person who couldn’t hear, a person who couldn’t speak English, a person looking for a 3-year old daughter with autism, a nanny looking for a 7-year-old child. And several others.

We offered support, we made real and imaginary phone calls, and told a wife that her husband had died.

And then talked with that wife about hearing news about a husband that was, of course, imaginary.

I worried about this for days. As I told a couple people, I talk with people all the time. I respond to their grief and anger and frustration and numbness. But I seldom talk to people who are pretending to have responses.

And we did well. By well, I mean that we discovered gaps in our processes. We discovered strengths in our plans. We discovered capacities to work with people we’d never met.

There is significant value for our community, our team, and my own work in walking through this kind of drill.

And I was reminded about the cost of worrying about things that I know are made up. And I wondered, a bit, whether it was legit to ask God to help me in conversations in a fictional event. What I know, of course, is that the conversations were real, though the situation wasn’t.

But it was nice to return to the real-time world, too. I enjoyed my nap after the event, enjoyed the annual trip to the Hawaiian Ice stand with Hope and Ben, and am about to enjoy an evening walk with Nancy.

Peace.

+++

For a reflection on what September 1 means to our family, you can read “Bearing Withness.”