Thoughtful sympathy inspirational gifts combine spiritual support with encouragement in times of grief. They place an emphasis on celebrating the life of the deceased and challenge us to move on to honor our loved ones with courage and hope.
In times of grief, it is important to balance support and comfort with hope and encouragement. What constitutes inspiration will vary with the individual and takes into consideration the person’s world view and value system.
Hope and encouragement must be tempered and gentle so as not to seem insensitive to the pain and depression that the grieving person is surely experiencing. Deep grief can be overwhelming.
The grieving person needs something to hold on to as he/she navigates the rough and cold waters of loss. Too heavy a focus on “the good that can be found” in the experience dismisses the depth of feeling and may be offensive to the griever.
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Posted by KarenGrisham |
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How do we “know” something? How do we know anything? Our primary sources usually involve written documents or the spoken word, with information ranging from ludicrously false to probably true. Yet, most of the time, even the most “objective” information has a slight personal twist to it, placing a layer between it and us. What we know in these instances is what another source has said about it.
Our “knowing” gains more credibility if we personally have witnessed or participated in something. It’s one thing to say “I read it,” and quite another to say “I saw it.” Most of my end-of-life articles for the past eight years falls into the “I saw it,” category on issues directly relating to death and grief. What I have witnessed in the deaths of my patients and the grief of their families often bears little resemblance to what some books and academics say I should be experiencing.
And then, there’s the type of information derived from experiences so personal that what you know reaches the level of “knowledge.” I’m often asked what people think as they approach death. Not weeks or days before, but very close to it. Until last night, I could only explain what I saw.
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Posted by StanGoldberg |
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Did you ever have a memory that rode into your consciousness on the back of a passing odor, object, or random word? Something you desperately tried to forget? But despite your best efforts, it still seeped through your emotional protective wall as if the wall was made of cheesecloth.
I knew I would have one of those experiences if I attended the rededication of the Zen Hospice Project’s Guest House in San Francisco, the site of my initial hospice training and service as a bedside volunteer. For seven years it remained closed, a victim of insurance over-caution following 911. There would be memories, both joyful and painful. As with so many other things now in my life, I resisted the emotionally safe thing to do, and decided to attend.
I entered the beautifully refurbished Victorian and roamed through the rooms where my life was transformed. The renovations, as amazing as they were, were crowded out by the memories of friends who had welcomed me into their lives and graciously showed me how to live, and yes, how to die.
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Posted by StanGoldberg |
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We often harshly judge behaviors we don’t understand. They can involve someone’s ingratitude, anger, or actions we label as foolish. I recently was guilty of the same thing here in the San Francisco Bay area with one of my hospice patients.
Her ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, left her unable to move any part of her body except her eyes. She lived alone, other than her caretaker, and had no family. When I arrived for my weekly visit I saw workmen retiling her hallway and bathroom. She knew that she would be dead within a few months and would never have the opportunity to touch or walk on the expensive tile. The apartment would be sold after her death and the remodel added nothing to its value. The question her friends asked themselves and me was why?
After being a bedside hospice volunteer for seven years I’ve never seen two people approach their deaths in the same way. Publications that list steps in dying or the behaviors to expect are more general frameworks than descriptions of what actually happens. I’ve found each person’s final journey is different. Each step is taken in preparation for leaving—and that’s the key for understanding a person’s needs, whether it’s making amends for something cruel that they did or spending thousands of dollars on remodeling an apartment.
For some people the steps are straight forward. They say goodbyes, forgive and ask for forgiveness, finish up practical business issues, and reflect back on their lives. They have what is often referred to as “the good death.” The implication is that a death having these qualities is better than one that doesn’t. But over the years I’ve served people who refused to reflect back on their lives and felt no need to talk about their death although they weren’t denying what was happening to them. And their deaths had the same soft quality of those that were more reflective.
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Posted by StanGoldberg |
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If you could choose the way you will die, what would it be?” Many people cavalierly answer “old age” or “in my sleep,” as if either of these answers will offer relief from an event they’ll do almost anything to avoid thinking about. But for some of us, the answers have less latitude and little humor. We have a better idea than most people what will do us in. In my case, it will most likely be prostate cancer, unless something else beats it to the punch.
I often think about the deaths of patients I’ve served for the past eight years as a bedside hospice volunteer. Some of the patients I developed a close friendship with, while others tested my reasons for serving. They ranged from an Episcopalian priest with stomach cancer who approached his death with inspiring solemnity, to the schizophrenic homeless man who preferred sleeping in a fetal position on the floor of his hospice room so he could “watch the lung cancer grow.”
What I’ve come to realize is that the question “what do you want to die from,” is a canard-something that hides an existential issue of much greater significance. The answers “in my sleep,” and “old age,” blanket over the a more basic fear: what will lead up to the moment of death. In my experience, I’ve found that what people hold on to from the past and what they refuse to give up in the future, has a greater effect on the peacefulness of their death than they illness they are dying from.Often I’ve seen emotional pain overshadow physical pain.
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Posted by StanGoldberg |
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Imagine that you’re preparing for a thirty-day trip to a foreign country and you’re limited to taking only what can be carried in a backpack. Your decisions on what to take or leave behind will determine the quality of your experience. Too many items and the weight will be burdensome. Not enough of the right ones and you might be forced to neglect some basic needs. We make decisions of this type daily. Take what’s important, leave behind what isn’t. But we tend to oblivious to the importance of these decisions for possibly the most momentous journey of our lives—our death.
As a bedside hospice volunteer for the past six years, I’ve found that the ideas and emotions people carry with them through life, as was the case with Joyce, often determines the quality of their death. During one visit she leaned back in her chair and softly said, “You know, dying is such hard work.” For two months her physical condition had been steadily declining and I assumed she was referring to her pulmonary problems. She paused, then said “I’m not talking about what’s happening to my body.” Pointing to her head she continued. “The hard work is what’s happening up here.” Although specific end-of-life issues were as numerous as the number of people I served, the type of “hard work” expressed by Joyce and others mostly fell into four categories: the difficulty of simplifying the present, forgiving the thoughtlessness of others, wanting desperately to be forgiven, and letting go of the dreams that would never be fulfilled.
SIMPLIFYING
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Posted by StanGoldberg |
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What would you say if a terminally-ill child asks the question? Should you be honest, probing, or try to convince her this is just a passing illness? The decision may be dictated by parental preferences or institutional policies. But what if there’s latitude in what you can say, or the moment is so pregnant with a child’s concern you don’t have time to consult with anyone? As with most things in hospice, there isn’t a right or wrong answer—just different ones.
How Children Process Information
Regardless what you decide, the words you use should be based on how children process information. Information processing is basically what we do with the billions of sense data that constantly bombards us—it’s how we sift the “stuff” of our world through an amalgam of beliefs, experiences, and intelligence. It results in an individualized collage of life and death. And it applies to both adults and children.
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Posted by StanGoldberg |
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We layer death with a multitude of screens, hoping to hide the elephant in the room. Today, instead of welcoming death as the greatest of all life coaches, we dread its appearance as if it is an embarrassing relative at a family gathering.
As a bedside hospice volunteer for the last seven years, I reside in the elephant’s footprint. What I’ve learned are lessons from people who invited me into their lives as they approached death. As I watched their transformation and growth, I felt as if I was experiencing the peeling away of an onion’s layers.
When someone knows they don’t have much time to live, things that were once thought important—such as roles, egos, and societal niceties—are shed as quickly as one takes off a winter coat in a hot room.
What’s left is an understanding about what’s important in life and an honesty often painful to witness. From their words and actions comes wisdom that cuts to the core of what it means to be human.
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Posted by StanGoldberg |
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The opening line of the pamphlet was straightforward: Join us in a workshop where you will experience your own death. Six months prior, I would have thought it an interesting exercise. But having received a diagnosis of “aggressive prostate cancer,” it had the relevance of a guidebook for an upcoming trip.
“I’m going to the Santa Cruz Mountains for ten days,” I said to Wendy, my wife. “Want to come?”
“And do what?”
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Posted by StanGoldberg |
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If you have recently lost a loved one, or even a friend with whom you were particularly close, then a beautiful stone memorial plaque would be a lasting memorial that you can place in your own garden. Such memorials are available online in cast stone, with and without plaques that you can have engraved to order, with a natural look that would beautify any garden.
Memorial Plaques
Perhaps you have a loved one who has passed away and want to erect a lasting memorial to him or her, a very personal way of doing so is to place something in your garden with an appropriate plaque.
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Posted by DonReynolds |
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