There's a part of me that cringes at making comparisons about birth and death. I'm 34 and I am not a midwife ushering in the hopes and dreams of new life, but a midwife to a journey that reveals to us only the end of this mortal experience. Everything in my being can be convinced that the end is the beginning of something terribly wonderful and unimaginably beautiful, but I don't get to see that beginning. I do not get to witness the blossom of a person's life after death or watch how she grows into her true self. All I see is the labor of death, all I can do is hold her hand while she makes that journey on her own.
Here I sit, a spiritual midwife to hundreds of people who labored through death. I witness how precious life is, how precious love and connection are. I desperately want to be a part of this cycle of life. I want to watch a life begin, grow and blossom. I want that life to be one I helped create. But, I will not be creating a baby, a new life within my own body. However, I have so many options for fostering and adopting and watching a life grow and blossom within my care. I'm sure many wonder why I don't just push forward towards those options. I'm not sure why myself at times. I could claim it is the inherent wisdom of a hospice chaplain to honor the time of grieving an unattainable dream. However, I can only say my heart is not ready.
Meanwhile, I spend much of my time with people close to death by singing softly to them. That which calms and quiets the fears of those new to life, also creates peace for those at the end. Tonight as I was perusing books about infertility, I came across the title Unsung Lullabies and it felt like grief was stabbing my heart. Of all the images that break my heart, the worst is the dream of singing my baby to sleep. What an intimate moment of connection. So full of meaning. It is not just that image, but of singing to my baby in the park, in the car, throughout life.
Singing is more than a balm for restless nights. Singing connects an experience with our emotions, our memories and our spiritual selves. While singing Amazing Grace to a patient, not only are memories and emotions evoked, but perhaps even her experience of the sacred. Someday I may hold a baby and sing a lullaby to her and calm the fears of being new to life. Yet, I already am singing lullabies each day to someone new to dying. It is sacred, this role of midwife, whether for birth or for death.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Friday, February 01, 2013
Saturday, July 07, 2012
Heavy hearts exist in chaplains too
My heart is heavy today. It has been a week of loss at hospice this week. That sounds redundant, but honestly, hospice is about living, not dying. It is about quality of life and comfort, of course, but it is also about acceptance, normalization of something that can be scary, isolating, and miserable, something that is a part of every living being's existence and yet we as a culture and as individuals try to deny its power over us... death, ending, beginning, loss, change, transition, absence, limitations, waiting and more waiting, anticipation, regret, the list is endless, just as endless as our experiences.
My heart is not just heavy over the loss of the person, but for the heartache left behind, for the misery leading up to the death. I have been in hospice for 5 years now. I have met hundreds of people who have died and even more of families who remain to grieve for them. I miss them all. I'd be lying if I said that I don't miss them. The laughter I share, the tears, the songs and whispers, the hugs, hand holding, prayer sharing, tear-wiping, humble-inducing meaning of life, what wisdom and what courage, what inspiration these wonderful people give me.
My heart is also heavy with the burden so many caregiving professionals carry... the burden that there will always be more that I could have done.. It sounds so trite, but honestly, I was not present at any one of these deaths and it weighs on my heart. Five years is a long time in hospice. I'm considered a veteran of hospice, how funny is that? I would not have made it this far if I hadn't learned boundaries, if I didn't have faith that no one is ever alone in this world, that not only my team look after these patients and families, but also the workers at the facilities they live in. I watch those new to hospice struggle with where to place those boundaries, with the burden of "just one more thing, or just one more visit, or just a few more minutes" and my heart aches for them... while at the same time struggling with guilt and wondering if I'm burnt out just because I set boundaries and stick to them most of the time.
I put in a long day yesterday, 7 visits... including explaining hospice to a man going on service and to a son putting his actively dying mom on service, and 3 people I visited can no longer speak to me and the other 2 have declined significantly. I'm not using that as an excuse, but as an example of when, even with good boundaries, the sorrow seeps into my bones. Tomorrow I will sit with a woman who wins blackout at bingo or smiles for the first time in months to the hymn I'm singing her and I will be healed.
My heart is not just heavy over the loss of the person, but for the heartache left behind, for the misery leading up to the death. I have been in hospice for 5 years now. I have met hundreds of people who have died and even more of families who remain to grieve for them. I miss them all. I'd be lying if I said that I don't miss them. The laughter I share, the tears, the songs and whispers, the hugs, hand holding, prayer sharing, tear-wiping, humble-inducing meaning of life, what wisdom and what courage, what inspiration these wonderful people give me.
My heart is also heavy with the burden so many caregiving professionals carry... the burden that there will always be more that I could have done.. It sounds so trite, but honestly, I was not present at any one of these deaths and it weighs on my heart. Five years is a long time in hospice. I'm considered a veteran of hospice, how funny is that? I would not have made it this far if I hadn't learned boundaries, if I didn't have faith that no one is ever alone in this world, that not only my team look after these patients and families, but also the workers at the facilities they live in. I watch those new to hospice struggle with where to place those boundaries, with the burden of "just one more thing, or just one more visit, or just a few more minutes" and my heart aches for them... while at the same time struggling with guilt and wondering if I'm burnt out just because I set boundaries and stick to them most of the time.
I put in a long day yesterday, 7 visits... including explaining hospice to a man going on service and to a son putting his actively dying mom on service, and 3 people I visited can no longer speak to me and the other 2 have declined significantly. I'm not using that as an excuse, but as an example of when, even with good boundaries, the sorrow seeps into my bones. Tomorrow I will sit with a woman who wins blackout at bingo or smiles for the first time in months to the hymn I'm singing her and I will be healed.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
matters of life and death...
Tonight I stroked the hair of a woman breathing her last breath and told her it was okay to go. She had breathed 3 times in 5 minutes before stopping. Her husband and son were so upset and said she’d died already. Her eyes were glazed over and she had no control over her muscles anymore. But that last breath, as I held her hand, stroked her hair, and told her that her family loved her and it’s okay to go, her mouth moved a lot and for an instant her eyes stopped glazing over. Was she aware? Was she still there? Was her soul, her essence of being still in her body or even in the room?
The hospice nurses talk to the dead bodies and treat their bodies as lovingly as if they were still there, perhaps in the room watching, or perhaps to ease the pain for the families, I don’t know.
I feel I am a spiritually attuned person. I have been present for the deaths of many people and sometimes I can feel their death like a sigh of release and freedom and sometimes I can’t. Sometimes it feels as if the person is dead long before the last breath or muscle twitch and sometimes not. When is it that we die? When does the awareness leave us?
I have witnessed the biofeedback of prayer too many times to count. Whether unconscious, in a coma, or sleeping the sleep before death, their breathing becomes less labored, their heart rate and blood pressure evens out. It’s as if they are listening with their whole bodies… or is it that the body itself is listening even when the mental awareness is gone? Is it possible that the body is aware and “lives” on despite the loss of sentience?
I also have met many people who cannot communicate at all or very little, even though their eyes and slight body language burst with awareness. It’s as if their souls are trapped in their bodies, silently screaming to be let out. Most often by stroke combined with old age, people cannot hear anymore, or only slightly, cannot write or read words anymore, cannot speak anymore. They are left with broken or slurred words or blinking yes or no to demonstrate their primary needs. Hardly anyone takes the time to draw out what they want to tell you. Sometimes this also happens while on a ventilator or another debilitating illness. Sometimes people’s brains and bodies heal and they can at least talk again. But in my line of work, I don’t see that much anymore. Are these people alive even though their bodies betrayed them? Often they don’t last very long; one infection or fracture is all it takes. Or sometimes, with no symptoms of impending death, they just will themselves to die. No signs or symptoms of death, their heart just stops.
Despite life and death being the one thing we all have in common, no body ever talks about it. I can’t tell you how many reactions to conversations about death I have witnessed. I’m not talking about philosophic conversations in a classroom or dusty old tome. I’m talking about intimate contact with death. Even hospice workers and funeral home people skirt around much of the issue. They may respect the mystery of it more and understand the science of it more, but when asked when a person really dies, mostly you get “Who knows?” Don’t stare at it directly and challenge what is ingrained in us, just step back and respect the mystery.
I don’t really expect there to be one blanket answer to any of these questions. So much of it is contextual… and people believe what is comfortable and familiar to them… even if it is fire and brimstone. Ahhh… the after life. That is a subject for a completely different blog.
May God bless all who search for answers and who seek to be reassured there is meaning to all of this.
The hospice nurses talk to the dead bodies and treat their bodies as lovingly as if they were still there, perhaps in the room watching, or perhaps to ease the pain for the families, I don’t know.
I feel I am a spiritually attuned person. I have been present for the deaths of many people and sometimes I can feel their death like a sigh of release and freedom and sometimes I can’t. Sometimes it feels as if the person is dead long before the last breath or muscle twitch and sometimes not. When is it that we die? When does the awareness leave us?
I have witnessed the biofeedback of prayer too many times to count. Whether unconscious, in a coma, or sleeping the sleep before death, their breathing becomes less labored, their heart rate and blood pressure evens out. It’s as if they are listening with their whole bodies… or is it that the body itself is listening even when the mental awareness is gone? Is it possible that the body is aware and “lives” on despite the loss of sentience?
I also have met many people who cannot communicate at all or very little, even though their eyes and slight body language burst with awareness. It’s as if their souls are trapped in their bodies, silently screaming to be let out. Most often by stroke combined with old age, people cannot hear anymore, or only slightly, cannot write or read words anymore, cannot speak anymore. They are left with broken or slurred words or blinking yes or no to demonstrate their primary needs. Hardly anyone takes the time to draw out what they want to tell you. Sometimes this also happens while on a ventilator or another debilitating illness. Sometimes people’s brains and bodies heal and they can at least talk again. But in my line of work, I don’t see that much anymore. Are these people alive even though their bodies betrayed them? Often they don’t last very long; one infection or fracture is all it takes. Or sometimes, with no symptoms of impending death, they just will themselves to die. No signs or symptoms of death, their heart just stops.
Despite life and death being the one thing we all have in common, no body ever talks about it. I can’t tell you how many reactions to conversations about death I have witnessed. I’m not talking about philosophic conversations in a classroom or dusty old tome. I’m talking about intimate contact with death. Even hospice workers and funeral home people skirt around much of the issue. They may respect the mystery of it more and understand the science of it more, but when asked when a person really dies, mostly you get “Who knows?” Don’t stare at it directly and challenge what is ingrained in us, just step back and respect the mystery.
I don’t really expect there to be one blanket answer to any of these questions. So much of it is contextual… and people believe what is comfortable and familiar to them… even if it is fire and brimstone. Ahhh… the after life. That is a subject for a completely different blog.
May God bless all who search for answers and who seek to be reassured there is meaning to all of this.