Dear Dale,
I am sorry that I had forgotten that it was your ex-wife. And, as you say, that made it a very different dynamic. You were drawn into a new kind of intimacy at a very different place and time in your relationship with your ex-wife, who had once been your wife. I have been aware of other families where this kind of reconciliation occurs at the time of dying.
Very precious not only for you, but also for your son.
I am glad that you took the initiative of assuring a support system for yourself, which included grief counseling.

You ask, as I did, what can be learned from the grieving process. Grieving is going on even before death. Yes, I would agree, allowing it is a primary lession. Allowing it as a natural human process. And as I grieve, I learn more about myself, and what is precious to me, and for what I am grateful. By trusting in the grieving process, I come to experience all the difficult human feelings, and the capacity I have to move through them, and emerge whole. While grieving, I can often feel very alone, and yet, I realize also that the presence of caring, and sensitive others, makes it possible to move through each day with some hope.   What might you, or anyone else add to this? I know there is much more.  And how, in companioning, can we support a dying person in her/his experience of grief?

Plum1

Hello Lynn

I am sorry to hear about your mother-in-law.  I am sending you this note in hope that you may find some comfort in these words.

Recently we held a regular meeting of our hospice Resident Support Volunteers.  At the meeting, the Supervisor of Volunteers made the following comment:

She mentioned that she had been approached by a staff member.  This nurse said that she had worked in palliative care for over 30 years and she observed something at our hospice that she had never seen before.  She said that she could not believe the large amount of food that the residents were eating.  In her experience, people at the end of life ate much, much less.  She wondered what this could be attributed to.

As a group, we had a discussion to see if we could figure out the reason for this phenomena.  Some of the points made were:

1)    The high quality of the kitchen volunteers

2)    The excellence of the meals

3)    The “presentation” of the meals:

a)    The meal was laid out attractively on the plate

b)    Sometimes the meal was accompanied by a vase of flowers or a hand-written card done in calligraphy.

4)    The meal was delivered by a volunteer who smiled, spoke cheerfully and asked questions to make sure that the meal was exactly as ordered.

These were all valid points, of course.  When I was asked for my comments, I pointed out that the whole of the atmosphere of the hospice was due not only to the wonderful meals, of course, but also due to the overwhelming presence of loving-kindness that permeates the place.

When people come to hospice, the primary goal is to make them as comfortable as possible in all ways, by incorporating a holistic, multi-discipline approach.  Every single person at hospice is committed to this goal, whether it is an administrator, medical staff or volunteers. 

This 100% commitment, I believe, results in an atmosphere, which (in part) results in a good appetite on the part of the residents.  In a larger sense, this results in a warm, peaceful, aura which permeates the hospice.  While the reasons for being at hospice are sad, everything is done to make the experience as serene as possible.

I submitted a posting in the Reflections and Inspiration section called, "The Hospice Love Phenomena".  It is a personal reflection in my role as a Resident Support Volunteer at our local hospice. 

It would be helpful if you could get some comments from a member of a hospice administration and also hospice medical staff.

-        Ekim