The word “hospice” didn’t exist in my vocabulary until 2009.
Having lived in India for 44 years where we don’t have hospice care, I was completely unfamiliar with the term.
But I heard the word whispered in hushed tones almost every day because I worked part-time in a senior living community. Was it a service attached to a hospital, I wondered.
I didn’t know it at the time but the universe was dropping little clues. Hospice, hospice, hospice…
Through a series of divine synchronicities which I describe in my loss memoir, I found myself in a hospice volunteer training program. I trained to become a bedside companion to the dying, a service I rendered for five years.
At the time my mother had been dead for less than a year and I was grieving hard. My husband, concerned about my mental well-being, was utterly baffled by my insistence to tend to the dying.
“You’re struggling with your own sadness,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be around happy people? Why do you want to do this…this work?”
“I don’t know how to explain it to you,” I replied. “But when I leave that hospice center, I feel as if I’m floating. It’s the only thing that seems to matter.”
Acquaintances and friends would use words like strong or bold or courageous to describe what I was doing. I’ve rarely used words like “strong” or “bold” or “courageous” to describe myself, not out of a sense of humility, but because I’m not a risk-taker or adventurer.
Truth is, the work of sitting with the dying called to me. I didn’t go looking for it. I wouldn’t even have known how to. The work of a death doula is a sacred calling. The hours I spent with the dying are some of the most profound connections I’ve ever had with complete strangers, sometimes a single encounter, a first and the last.
When you meet someone who’s inching toward death, you meet them at their worst (and their best, in a manner of speaking).
The smell of death is in the room. The body is dying as minutes tick by. Pallid skin, often bruised by too many IV’s. Swollen feet, bulging blue veins. Raspy, ragged breath. But I also saw a nakedness, a raw vulnerability, a shedding of their protective guard. Gone were the masks they’d had to wear for most of their lives. The armor they used for self-protection was finally stripped away.
Photo by Jake Thacker on Unsplash
All that remained was the human shell through which the light of their inner divinity could finally radiate.
This does not mean at all that everyone who nears the end of their life is magically transformed into their angelic selves. I’ve met my share of mean and angry folks who died as angry as they’d lived (their relatives shared this with me). Angry at God, angry at life, and disappointed in their family members. It taught me a very valuable lesson.
The way we live is the way we will die.
Those who move through their fifties, sixties, seventies and beyond with grace and gratitude face the end of their lives with an equanimity that’s inspiring. They’ve lived some of their dreams and done the best they could with what they were given.
Conversely, the folks who spent lives stoking their resentments, regrets, and rage end up agitated about pretty much everything. They lived disgruntled, empty lives and they often die estranged from family.
There’s no time to wait. We can all begin today. Let go of what’s not within our control. Find compassion and kindness for ourselves and others. Live well so that our last days on god’s green earth are filled with grace.
Reflections:
What have I been holding on to that I need to release?
Where, in my life, am I waiting for someone to say/do something so that I can be at peace?
Who deserves my compassion and forgiveness today?
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Love, Uma