Oaths and Vows

There’s a lot of overlap, but there are also subtle differences. Oaths are taken before a deity and in the presence of one’s community. For example, the Hippocratic Oath for physicians or the Nightingale Pledge for nurses or the Oath that Pharmacists take. Each is a commitment to a life of ethical behavior and professionalism. Attorneys take a similar oath, I believe; but carpenters, tile-setters, plumbers and other artisans do not. I have taken the Hippocratic Oath albeit quite a few decades ago. As a devout atheist, I took mine before Odin and my fellow medical school graduates, our families, and our mentors.

Vows are similar, but they do not all require a commitment before a deity. Take for instance wedding vows; they can be taken before a community of peers in a simply secular ceremony. Vows of chastity, silence, obedience, and the like are part of a commitment that some religious orders require of their members – such vows are made before a deity and a religious community, of course.

Elected officials and political appointees both take oaths of office, but they also speak vows to the public. They vow to ferret out and punish corruption, to end poverty and injustice, to improve our schools, and many more commitments that most often prove as fleeting as the soundbite that they deliver. Sigh.

Despite their oaths, vows, and most sincerely held intentions, some physicians defraud the public and its government; some clerics abuse children and women while they profess their faith in and fidelity to some religion; some judges use the robes of justice only to commit crimes, and so on. In other words, each profession has among its members a broad cross-section of humanity that ranges from the very best in us to the very worst. Alas, our oaths and vows, unlike magical incantations, do not make us more noble than we are without them. I think that, at best, our oaths and vows help to make us more aware of what we should aspire and endeavor to be and do in order to be worthy of the title or post that we have been granted. They speak to us of our responsibilities.

I found myself perseverating on oaths and vows last night after struggling to help Susan out of my car and into a wheelchair intending to get her into the house after her foot surgery. The only viable wheelchair access into our home is around the perimeter of the property by way of a narrow cement walkway, leading to the back porch, and then into a sliding back door that opens into the dining room. The trip was a complete disaster. When we finally got to the back porch, the right rear wheel of the wheelchair had lost its tire – it had detached from the rim. The wheelchair is not an ATV. Susan quipped that it was a blowout like the one her car had on her recent trip to Omaha. Humor in the face of adversity is something that both of us have cultivated in our four-decade-long partnership.

Once inside, we struggled to get her into a dining room chair for a fast-food dinner. The rest of the evening was no less challenging – getting to the toilet, getting into bed, and so forth. When we were finally settled down for the night, I reflected that our wedding vows had included the phrase “in sickness and in health.” I never fully comprehended the meaning of that commitment until encountering the very circumstances that the vow contemplated.

It is one thing to tend to a sick partner when we ourselves are young and strong. It’s a simple matter of bringing a glass of water and medicine to the bedside. Perhaps it requires warming up a bowl of chicken soup. Later in life, it may require helping the partner that we have undressed so many times to dress instead. It is quite another thing to tend to a sick partner who requires the strength of the person I was in my youth but am no longer.

It is in these vulnerable moments that I entertain ideas such as, “Would it be okay to summon EMS to help me get her into bed? Could I get an ambulance to take her to the ER to change this blood-soaked dressing, and would they bring her back afterward? Is there enough room in the backyard for a LifeFlight helicopter to land?”

That’s when the meaning of the vow reveals itself, “In sickness and in health.” I decide to muddle through as best I can. We struggle to get into bed. I do my best to change the blood-soaked bandages – pretending yet once more that I am a junior medical student tending to a post-op patient at the VA hospital. I do what I can to fulfill my oaths and vows.

Perhaps tomorrow I can prepare a bowl of chicken soup for her.