What Matters

Since September of this year, I have returned to hospice nursing, my true passion in my profession. I have said, many times, that there is a sacredness in caring for people and their families as the end of life here approaches. It is an intimate, private time where there is no room for pretense. It is a privilege to be present, and to be able to help.


 In the few months I have admitted hospice patients, I have seen love expressed in its purest form. A wife, learning that her 41 year old husband was actively dying, that his restlessness was a sign of imminent death, laid on his chest and, for at least twenty minutes, spoke of memories in their lives, remembering trips they had taken and times spent with their children. She did not pause as she recalled, for him, mental pictures of a good life, and somehow he was able to hear her and even respond verbally as she would say, "Do you remember how we.....?" No one told her to do this; it was a spontaneous act of love and a soothing gift in her attempt to help him become calm. Hearing her voice,he was able to stop struggling.


Yesterday my work took me to a nursing home. As I looked at the many elderly men and women sitting motionless and alone in wheelchairs as time ticked away, I thought: if it all comes down to this, being old and wrinkled and forgetful, what matters?  Instantly, the words of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross came to my mind. She is known for being the pioneer in the care of the dying, spending hundreds, if not thousands of hours at their bedsides. Being debilitated by a stroke at the end of her life, she spent her last two years contemplating the lessons she had learned, both in her work and in finding patience to endure being trapped in her body for so long. 


The final chapter, On Life and Living, in her final book, The Wheel of Life, ends with these words:


"You should live until you die. No one dies alone. Everyone is loved beyond comprehension. Everyone is blessed and guided. It is very important that you do only what you love to do. You may be poor, you may go hungry, you may live in a shabby place, but you will totally live. And at the end of your days, you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do.


The hardest lesson to learn is unconditional love. 


Dying is nothing to fear. It can be the most wonderful experience of your life. It all depends on how you have lived. Death is but a transition from this life to another existence where there is no more pain and anguish.


Everything is bearable when there is love. My wish is that you try to give more people more love.


The only thing that lives forever is love."