Creative thinking from three nurses at the medical intensive care unit at Huntsville Hospital in Alabama helped a terminally ill patient fulfill her wish to get baptized earlier this summer, just a week before she died.
Jeannie Guffey, 74, who had been battling lung cancer for about a year, knew she didn’t have much time left when she told her family she wanted to get baptized in July. She was already confined to her hospital bed, and the hospital staff was getting ready to send her home to be with her family under hospice care.
Guffey’s family wasn’t sure how they were going to get her baptized in a fourth-floor hospital room full of medical equipment as they pondered how to fulfill her dying wish. That’s when ICU nurses Erin Powers, Kaitlin Swaim and Emily Owens stepped in.
According to a blog post on the hospital website, the nurses pooled their own money together and purchased a kiddie pool from Walgreens after some online research. They then had the pool delivered via DoorDash on July 8. After inflating it with a pump from the Guffey family, they filled it with warm water to create a special baptismal pool for the dying grandmother.
Medical staff later used a lift to get her in the pool, and her adult son, Jody, baptized her in the presence of her husband, Ronnie, and other family members.
“It was just an honor being able to give Ms. Guffey the last thing she wanted before she went home,” Powers said in a statement shared with The Christian Post. “The family was eternally grateful and very gracious that we were able to do this for them and for Miss Guffey before she left.”
“Being a nurse is so much more than just being a nurse,” she added. “It’s more than managing symptoms, and it’s more than making people feel better. It’s helping take care of not only their physical health, but their spiritual health, their mental health, and their emotional health.”
Guffey’s daughter-in-law, Carol Guffey, said watching her mother-in-law get baptized “was like the weight of the world was lifted off our shoulders.”
“It was just a really sweet, emotional moment,” she said. “The nurses went above and beyond to make this happen at the 11th hour when we were running out of options.”
Guffey, who was married for 56 years, died on July 17.
Her obituary described her as “the heartbeat of her family, providing a sense of stability, comfort, and steadfast love.”
“Known for being an exceptional cook, her home was a place where family and friends gathered around the table, sharing meals, telling stories, and making memories that are treasured,” the obituary reads. “In her final days, she was lovingly cared for by her oldest granddaughter, Grace, whose devotion was a reflection of the deep love and close bond they shared.”
In discussing her role in helping Guffey fulfill her wish to be baptized, Powers, who is a Christian, said she did her best to help her rest in peace.
“Honestly as a follower of Jesus, the main thing He calls us to do is to love others and to bring people to Jesus,” she said. “And if the last thing we can do for Mrs. Guffey — since we couldn’t cure her, we couldn’t heal her, we couldn’t make her all better — we could make sure she had a place in Heaven, make sure that that part of her walk with the Lord was finished.”
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