![]() ![]() Then, ask what he really wants to pray for. If you want to pray with someone, ask him if he wants to first. Never assume you know anything about their spiritual life or feelings. And many of those patients, as soon as the family leaves the room, break down in tears, terrified and grateful for the chance to finally talk about their soul-shaking fear. On the other end of the spectrum, I've had plenty of patients whose families have assured me that their loved ones aren't afraid at all because of family beliefs. It can be a huge relief to talk openly about and pray for a quick death, because often their family and friends shush them when they try to. One of the most common things patients ask me to pray for is that they die soon. Just as she had 70 years before, on the day they met. The scenarios were always different, but what he imagined heaven would be like always remained the same: He'd be walking down a path in a park, and his wife would jump out from behind a tree and yell, "Boo!" Stan closed his eyes and started again on his favorite pastime: imagining his own death. "Because you're the only one who will pray that I die this afternoon." "Do you know why you're my favorite?" a hospice patient named Stan asked. ![]() They might not tell you the truth about their feelings. Try really hard to overcome your fear, and call or visit.Ĥ. Too often, these changes, and perhaps their own fears of death or saying or doing the wrong thing, make a dying person's friends and family afraid of her.Ĭan you imagine knowing you're leaving this world soon, needing the people you love more than you ever have in your entire life, and all of a sudden, seeing that they're afraid of you? So try. Someone who's dying often looks different, sounds different, smells different and can't do the things she might have once done. The body struggles to hold on, and it can be really hard to witness. Some people die quickly and easily, but most, at least in hospice, do not. ![]() Sometimes, the sights and smells overwhelm me. I've had education and training to be a hospice chaplain, and have probably visited over a thousand people who are dying, and sometimes it's still hard for me. "She doesn't need prayers! She needs her friends!" a husband whose wife hadn't had visitors in years once cried. Too many times, I've heard about the children, the friends, the churches, the clubs who have stopped visiting. They're still who they always have been, even as they go through this new experience.īut they're often crushingly lonely. They laugh, and reminisce, and love to see the people they love. They know you are scared, but they still need you there. If he says he's overwhelmed by phone calls, believe him, and send a card instead.ģ. And if he cancels at the last minute, know that it might be that he feels absolutely awful that day. Ask how you can be helpful.ĭying is exhausting. Call first to see if your friend is feeling up to having visitors that day. Yes, offer to help with chores, but don't decide you know what needs to be done. Someone taking over your home without permission can feel like yet another loss to bear. People who are dying often feel like they've lost so much control over their lives already. There's a well-intentioned but odd piece of advice floating around out there that friends and neighbors of the dying should show up without calling first and do the laundry or clean out the refrigerator. So ask your friend or family member whether she wants to be hugged. Many people who are dying are starved for touch. What could I do with such a deep, heartbreaking need right in front of me? What would you do? I lay next to Betty, wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head, the way I do with my children when they go to sleep. Hospice nurse reveals the unexplained phenomena cracked#"I long to be held," she said, and her voice cracked and broke. They touched her because they had to, not because they loved her. "You can't imagine what that's like." She looked very small on her nursing home bed.ĭidn't the aides touch her, I asked, when they took care of her, bathed her and helped her move? "No one ever touches me anymore," my patient Betty said. ![]()
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