Hospice Journey

If someone you love has died, you may be familiar with hospice. If you aren’t, a good and compassionate introduction is a new book by Larry Patten, A Companion for the Hospice Journey. Patten carefully lays out what hospice is, what the different people on the hospice team do (doctor, nurse, social worker, home health aide, chaplain), and answers the common questions people have.

On Dying

I don’t often write about the dying side of death’s continental divide. There’s enough on grief’s side of the mountain to occupy me. But my cat Minya is currently in assisted living and keeps reminding me of my father’s last months. He would not like the comparison—not a cat person. She also reminds me of Atul Gawande’s insightful book, Being Mortal.

Have No Regrets

Book: On Living, Kerry Egan

“Hospice chaplain explodes in spontaneous combustion of laughter.”

            “Hospice chaplain explodes in spontaneous combustion of laughter.”

            Just kidding, but there is humor in Kerry’s book, On Living, which many would not expect in a book about dying. I‘ve been looking forward to reading about Kerry’s work as a hospice chaplain ever since I read one of her stories two years ago. The voice that I loved in her first book, Fumbling, is still here. This is a book on the beauty of the human heart.

Retiring Into the Forest

I am not happy with my parents. Or my wife’s parents. Or your parents, even though I’ve never met them, because they’re probably like mine. 

Throughout our lives, we’re always planning ahead for what comes next. Getting our ducks in order. Then we retire and stop making adjustments. We settle into a comfortable routine and let life go on without us. Except that life doesn’t stop changing.

Death of a Parent

“The journey of walking with a dying parent has no roadmap,” my friend Beth said. “It’s uncharted territory.” Our parents often die before we expect them to, and in ways for which we aren’t prepared, not that we are ever prepared for death.

            We know that our parents will die someday, and we expect that this will happen before we die. Yet we don’t know how we are going to react to their passing until the time comes and reality knocks us off our hinges. Some parents die early from a car accident or heart attack, and we have to deal with their sudden loss. Some parents die slowly, with our hopes rising and falling as they lose ground, rally, and then succumb to diseases like cancer. Some parents die from alcoholism, and some die when we are young and needed their advice and support.

Hospice and Parents

It was hard watching dad in his chair, tucked under a blanket, eyes closed, mumbling, “Help me,” and not know what kind of help he wanted. He hadn’t talked much in the last week. Was he thirsty? Hungry? Uncomfortable? Perhaps he was afraid of dying?

I’m often moved by the stories that Elaine, Kerry and Larry, who work in hospice, tell of the grace they encounter as people ready themselves to die, the regrets they express, the things they wish they had done, and the quiet presence that inhabits many of their last days. My friends are dying midwives, death doulas, who are like birth doulas because they help people make the transition from this life to the next.

Compassion is a River

How do we kindle compassion for others? And how do we as ordinary people (as well as hospice workers, home caregivers, grief counselors, and palliative care people) prevent compassion burnout? 

A few of my thoughts published in Mindful Matter:  https://www.holstee.com/blogs/mindful-matter/54387205-compassion-is-a-river

Thinking Ahead About the Unthinkable

            I do not understand people’s reluctance to talk about end-of-life matters. Do we think that by talking about dying we send an invitation to Death? 

            We’re all going to die, and we know this. We also expect that our parents will die before us, although enough children die early to give us pause. When I looked at the obituaries in the local newspaper, I was surprised to find that 25% of the people who died were under the age of 60.

End of Life

The best time to talk

about end of life matters

is when we aren’t in cardiac arrest.

Mark Liebenow

End Talks

We’ve all heard people say something like, “Don’t talk about death. Death is morbid.” So we don’t. And because we don’t talk about it, when death comes to someone we know, we’re not ready. We don’t know what to do or say.