Pattillo retires from ‘tailor-made’ hospice chaplain role

For 18 years, Zelma Pattillo’s life has been focused on helping others find the most meaningful closure they can.
   
And now Pattillo, recently retired coordinator of spiritual care for New Beacon Hospice in Birmingham, is trying to do the same for herself — saying goodbye to a ministry she said was tailor-made for her before she knew it existed.
   
“I couldn’t have written a better job description (for myself),” the hospice chaplain said of her work with New Beacon, an ecumenical ministry of Baptist Health System (BHS) and St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham. 
   
“When I felt called to ministry in 1953 in the mountains of Virginia, hospice hadn’t even come into existence in my part of the world. How could I have ever imagined that I would live out my calling in hospice?”
   
Now more than half a century later, all over central Alabama are cemeteries sprinkled with memories for Pattillo — memories of people who allowed her to hold their hand, hear their stories, minister to their family and perform their funeral.
   
“You have to deal with grief because you do get attached,” said Pattillo, whose ministry spans 40 years. “But ministering to them is such a rich time to hear their stories, and doing their funeral is such a privilege to honor each life.”
   
She recounted the story of one woman who decided to learn to drive in her senior adult years. The woman would go to the nearby cemetery to practice her new skill, and her husband would joke that “at least, she couldn’t hurt anyone there.”
   
When Pattillo later got the opportunity to conduct the woman’s funeral in that same cemetery, she was able to elicit smiles with that story of a family she now knew intimately. 
   
“Here where she tried her first wheels, she also tried her first wings,” Pattillo said to grieving family members present that day.
   
Another such family was the Milicans, whom she got to know when the Milicans’ daughter Mary Alice was dying of cancer. After the family buried her in 1993, Pattillo was asked to come back the next year and perform the funeral of a granddaughter who died suddenly.
   
In 1995, Pearlie Mae Milican — the matriarch of the family — died, followed by her son Lee Jr. in 1997. Pattillo performed all four funerals, and when Lee Millican Sr. passed away in 2000, one of his daughters called and said, “Mrs. Zelma, you know he would want you to do his funeral, too.”
   
“It’s amazing in the hospice ministry when you walk with people and connect at that deep level,” Pattillo said. “I just can’t describe how it is for people to invite you to make that journey with them.”
   
When the position first came open at BHS for a full-time chaplain in the late ’80s, BHS held the spot for her until she tied up some loose ends. “It’s been a wonderful journey ever since,” Pattillo said. 
   
And one for which she had been building up the strength for years. 
   
Valedictorian of her high school and two college graduating classes — Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tenn., and the University of Virginia’s College at Wise — Pattillo headed full force into Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville, Ky. There she earned both a master of arts in Christian education and master of divinity, focusing on pastoral care.
   
Between master’s degrees, she married Pat Pattillo, who was working at SBTS. The couple have two children — a daughter, Laura Grace, and a son, Stephen Riley.
   
As Pattillo’s family began to expand, so did her ministry. She only picked up steam as she served several Baptist churches as minister to college students, minister of preschool education, associate pastor for education and pastoral care and pastoral counselor. She also participated in outreach programs for migrant workers in South Carolina and worked with residents of isolated Appalachian mining camps.
   
“I love being in ministry,” Pattillo wrote in a 1984 article in The Christian Century magazine. “The joy and fulfillment I have experienced have come in doing what I would have paid to do.”
   
Just before finally arriving in hospice care, she served at SBTS as supervisor of seminary students enrolled in pastoral care, counseling studies and spiritual formation. Pattillo also served there as supervisor of ministry experience.
   
Then the road led the Pattillos to Birmingham, where Pat Pattillo served as vice president for university relations at Samford University. The couple became active members of Baptist Church of the Covenant, and Zelma Pattillo dove into the newest phase of her calling. And years of bedside talks, funeral home ministry and graveside services later, she hasn’t looked back.
   
One woman who lost her father wrote to Pattillo: “Your words brought him great comfort and reassurance. It wasn’t until the funeral, however, that I realized how deep your relationship had been with Dad. Only someone who had intimately shared with Dad would have been able to choose such perfect words in reflection. I am very grateful that Dad chose you to be a part of this journey in our lives.”
   
Another who lost her mother wrote: “Our paths will not cross again, and yet you will remain part of a picture I can’t forget. The picture, in spite of the loss, is a valuable one and I thank you most sincerely for making it so.”
   
The notes Pattillo has received fill boxes upon boxes, but the memories are even more innumerable.
   
“You make this very deep journey with them, and the connection is a deep connection,” she said. 
   
Pattillo will soon move to New York, where her husband serves as associate general secretary for communications for the National Council of Churches.
   
She said she hopes to spend time in her retirement continuing the writing she has done for years, putting on paper more of the stories that have touched her during her years of ministry.
   
“They are able to share their life’s story with you. It’s a powerful time when people reflect on their lives and bring closure.”