Father Noel Hickie (NH) and Marcia Hilton (MH)
Father Noel Hickie was working as a hospital chaplain when he met Marcia Hilton — a bereavement counselor — at a hospital in Eugene, Oregon.They often worked together on hospice teams, helping patients and their families through illness and death. And they did that for 25 years. But, as they remembered at StoryCorps, when they first started, neither was sure they were cut out for the work.
NH: I thought that I would never want to be around sick people, or anything to do with death.
MH: I had that same feeling in the beginning. I had never been in a hospital environment before. I had never seen blood hanging on an I.V. pole. Just the hubbub of a hospital was really frightening to me.
NH: Mmhm.
MH: And I can remember thinking, ’What am I doing here?’
NH: I remember years ago, one of the nurses asked me to go out and talk to a patient. I said, ’What am I supposed to talk to them about?’ She said, ’Well maybe, you know, they’re so afraid, if you could take her fear away.’ I said, ’You know, if I could do that I wouldn’t be working here — I would be the richest man in the world.’
MH: [Laughs] I think probably the most terrifying experience I had was within my first six months of work. I was called down to intensive care because there had been a gunshot wound to a young man that was fatal and it was his best friend who had accidentally shot him. And I remember getting on that elevator, my knees were just knocking.
I walk into this room where the family is gathered, and there must have been 25 people in there. The mother was in the corner, rocking back and forth and moaning, and siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, the young man who had shot his friend. And I remember sitting there having absolutely no idea what I had to offer. I must have sat there for a half an hour. And finally I said, ’I didn’t know Jim. Could you tell me about him?’ And a whole conversation started around the room of people sharing reminiscences about this young man. And it was just a miraculous transformation, what happened in that room. I was okay. They were okay. They would be okay.
And I think that was a part of when things happened for me and my realization that maybe I could do this work.
That was Marcia Hilton and Father Noel Hickie in Springfield, OR. Marcia retired in 2013 and Father Noel in 2015. This interview is part of StoryCorps’ Legacy Initiative — an effort to preserve the stories of people facing life-threatening conditions, their families, and caregivers.
