hospice | In Care of Dad

Posts Tagged ‘hospice’

Reflections On A Final Moment Of Joy

Posted on July 30th, 2013 by karen

by Kent Nerburn

There was a time in my life twenty years ago when I was driving a cab for a living. It was a cowboy’s life, a gambler’s life, a life for someone who wanted no boss, constant movement, and the thrill of a dice roll every time a new passenger got into the cab.

What I didn’t count on when I took the job was that it was also a ministry. Because I drove the night shift, my cab became a rolling confessional. Passengers would climb in, sit behind me in total anonymity, and tell me of their lives.

We were like strangers on a train, the passengers and I, hurtling through the night, revealing intimacies we would never have dreamed of sharing during the brighter light of day.

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Wrenching Choices At The End Of Life, Part II

Posted on June 24th, 2013 by karen

by Joan Blumenfeld, MS, LPC

I read an obituary last week that gave me pause. It was for a Mr. John Davis who died at age 87, peacefully, at home surrounded by his loving family. A true marvel in this age of high-tech medicine, an incredible array of medications for every ailment, and frequent hospital admissions for the elderly. I was envious!

Too often these days we die alone in a hospital bed, tubes in every orifice, surrounded by machines that beep and blink and hordes of medical personnel, all struggling to prolong life instead of allowing for a natural death. We seem to be so much more concerned with preserving life at any cost than we are at letting go when it’s time.

In the interest of my own end-of-life concerns, I have signed advance directives that give my adult children the responsibility of making decisions for me if I am unable to do so for myself, and I have spoken to them about this innumerable times. I know full well that when such a time comes, they will have to make difficult choices between maintaining my life even if there is no quality left or letting nature take its course.

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Book Review: Final Gifts

Posted on March 24th, 2011 by kim

by Kim Keller

I can still hear my father’s voice pleading with me, “Kim, pull the car around! I’ve gotta go!” His frustration was palpable as he kept saying this over and over to me. He was deliriously sick, and you could just feel his struggle. He was in the hospital, which is where he’d been spending a great deal of time, and I thought, of course, that he was desperately trying to break out of the hospital and get back home. Not that I could blame him, but he was so sick that the idea of leaving the hospital was simply unthinkable. I had no idea that he was really trying to tell me something entirely different. Then a couple of weeks later, my dad died. And it wasn’t until a year later, while I was reading an amazing book called Final Gifts, that I finally understood what he was so urgently trying to say — I’m dying, Kim.

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