Fredda Cohen

I was a young, eager chaplain at a community hospital, completing rabbinical school. So eager, in fact, that I misread a referral regarding a patient who actually requested no chaplain visits. When I went to visit her, there was another woman with her. The patient then advised me that she didn’t want any chaplain visits.

But she was kind and compassionate, and must have seen that I was a novice. She invited me to sit with her. As I came closer, she said to me: “Rabbi, I can’t believe that I have only three weeks to live.”