How we live, how we die, how we believe
by Jim Young, HPCCR Volunteer
In our darkest hours there can be light, and I have seen this even in death. My mom died thirty years ago. Back then, death was a dark and scary place; there was so much uncertainty. It seemed, to me at least, that the way hospitals dealt with the dying was somewhat crude and impersonal. The philosophy of that era was that the dying should be placed in a private room, and the use of medications should be liberal. At least that was the way my mother endured her last six days of life. As we watched her suffer, a piece of our family also suffered and died with her. It was an agonizing experience because I felt like the people who could have helped her took a step back.
Maybe this is why my faith took a turn for the worse — there was no peace found by anyone, especially my mother. My trust was broken when it came to anything spiritual or medical. Maybe that is why God led me to volunteer with hospice because by doing so, I have been healed and have come to realize that neither God nor the medial profession let me or my mother down. God was always there and the medial profession was still evolving to a better understanding of how to deal with cancer, dementia, and other diagnoses; how to bring some level of comfort to not only the patients, but also the caregivers and families. Hospice takes an active role with all involved by not only bringing a higher level of care to the patient, but also bringing grief support to the ones who are left behind — something I wish would have been there for my mother and my family those last six days so long ago. Acceptance would have replaced uncertainty, peace would have replaced suffering. We would have believed.
I have heard the cries for help, and I have seen the agony of suffering in the faces of the dying and their loved ones. In the end we all have to die, but it is not about how we die more than it is about how we live. I have walked with someone who is dying, and in the few steps I have walked with them, I have been taught more about life than I have from someone I have walked an entire lifetime with. For the dying, faith, God, family, and friends become the only essentials; they hold onto this faith and love as much as their loved ones hold onto hope. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen the dying become more concerned with the wellbeing of the loved ones they are leaving behind than the pain and suffering they are enduring with every breath they take. Hospice has taught me there can be comfort instead of pain. There can be hope instead of despair. And there can be peace in death, even for those who are left behind.
Thirty years later, as I stand before my mother’s grave, I am overwhelmed by a feeling of serenity and peace, something my mother never really got to embrace in life. But I feel her peace here among the other voices whispering in the wind. I truly do believe.
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Tags: belief, death, faith, hospice, Jim Young, life, medical care
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January 25, 2012 at 9:39 am
Mr. Young, you took my breath away. Thank you so much.