The late William McEvoy. (Contributed)
Norwalk resident William McEvoy died of a heart attack on March 16th at age 51. At the time of his death he was changing careers from publishing executive to Unitarian Universalist minister.
“Our Real Bucket List” was one of his last sermons, delivered at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester in October – Bob Welsh, Chapman Hyperlocal Media Board member.
This past summer, as part of my education as a minister, I participated in a Clinical Pastoral Education program, or CPE for short. I spent 11 weeks at Bridgeport Hospital as a chaplain, visiting folks in their rooms, responding to traumas and other requests, and being a presence for patients and staff. We’d be assigned particular units to cover daily. I had oncology and cardiac recovery, but we would also sometimes carry the response pager, yes, a pager, old fashioned as that sounds. If the pager went off, it meant there was an emergency somewhere that needed a chaplain, often in the emergency room and sometimes in an intensive care unit. Sometimes we’d be called because a patient died, to say prayers with the family and provide comfort. We would have the pager during the day, and once a week we’d pull either an overnight or weekend shift, where we were the only chaplain on duty. Continue reading Opinion: Our real bucket list
