I walked my friend Dianna from our chaplaincy office on the edge of the Emergency Department out to triage. It was the end of her last shift as a chaplain. She’s retiring.

She’d been up all night. A couple of deaths. She talked with families, talked with nurses, completed the paperwork of death. A couple of other crises that were, for families, resulting in phone calls. “Mom’s here again.” “Dad’s moving to intensive care.

She cleaned out her drawer, all except for her badge. She finished emails.

We’ve worked together for nine years. We’ve been on the older end of the team, having had other careers, and ending up here, learning a new one.

Now most of the staff chaplains are younger than we ever were while doing this work. Some are the age of our children. They are learning life and learning this life.

Before she left, we talked. I got to remind her one more time about her willingness to walk into hard stuff, to shrug and pick up the phone and make the calls. I reminded her that God didn’t work in spite of her, God worked through her.

It was the kind of conversation you’d expect between friends and coworkers who are winding down their time. I’ve got three more months before I walk away, too.

We got to the double doors that divide triage, what people call “the waiting room” from the ED. At 0730, there weren’t many people out there. And the room was glowing. The sun was in front of us.

We stopped. “There was bad stuff happening when you got here, there will be bad stuff happening after you leave,” I said.

She said “So you’re saying I didn’t make a difference?”

I laughed. That’s how Dianna and I both think.

“No,” I said. “You’ve made a difference all in between there.”