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Q: What happened the night before Joe died?
Marjorie: Joe had called his family in early that morning to talk with them. It was as though he was in a quandary as to whether he should go on with his journey or whether he should stay with his family. He told his family when they came in, "I don't know whether to die or stay here." His family told him to go ahead and go on with his journey. His mom and dad were waiting for him, probably many other people were waiting for him. It was just a few hours later that Joe died and with his family by his side.
I spoke with his daughter and she stressed to me how Joe kept reaching out and wanting to hold his family. I asked her, "Jolene, where do you feel the most comfortable?" She said, "When I'm laying with my father - when I've got my arms around him and I'm just there with him." I told her, "You know, don't hesitate to just pick him up in your arms and hold him, because our comfort level is when someone is holding us and giving us the security that it's safe." So Jolene sat with him, held him and gave him this safe permission to go on with his journey.
His trip up to the mountain was very important to him. I talked with his daughter and she said that trip was just wonderful for him. It was his last journey to the mountain, and he had to make that trip. When he came home his condition declined rapidly because he had achieved what he felt he needed to achieve. Through all of his process of living and dying, Joe felt it was very important to show the courage of life, to show the courage of the challenge that he had ahead of him. And from talking with his family, he had left them with this great gift that he had walked his life with courage and he had headed down towards his journey with death with a great amount of courage. I know that for myself from working with Joe and just being able to have the privilege of being able to be with him through this process. Joe and I talked often about hospice care and how it doesn't solely concentrate on the dying process, it also concentrates on the living process. Joe would say to me so often, "Let's just have fun." Very rarely did Joe want to sit and dwell on the aspect that he was dying. Joe knew he was dying. Joe knew that he was at a terminal state but Joe preferred to live every single day of his life. And that's what he did.
Q: Was Joe's death typical for a hospice patient?
Marjorie: Joe's death was very typical. We try to bring our patients and our families to a point where we're not dwelling constantly on dying. The dying process is a natural process. We've been given the great gift of this strong, wonderful body. Then the body does reach a point where it no longer can house this wonderful spirit that we all have. I think it's our role as hospice workers to stress the point that the body is weakening but the spirit is not. That spirit is like we were when we were eighteen years old and it goes on and on. Even as we near death, that spirit still lingers on in a very strong, healthy state. That is what we try to reach on a hospice level...the living spirit of the human being as we go through this process of dying.
Q: You often talk about death as a journey. Describe that to me.
Marjorie: Life is a journey and the dying process is part of that journey, a part of life. I try so hard to express and to stress the journey that we take in life through birth. Being born is a very difficult aspect of life. Life in itself can be very challenging, very difficult. The process of journeying on when we reach the dying process is very difficult for us, but is also a part of the whole process. I feel so strongly that our journey does not end with death. It continues on, only on a level none of us really know or understand right now, and I guess we won't until we walk that path. As a hospice worker, I feel honored to take this process with each and every patient that I have the privilege of working with. Very rarely do I get up in the morning and think I have to go to work. It's kind of like I get up in the morning and say, "Thank you so much. Thank you, God, for the privilege that you have allowed me to experience every day of my life."
Q: So many of us are just terrified of death. You don't seem to have that fear. Why is your view different than most people's?
Marjorie: Actually my attitude does not come from working with hospice for as long as I have. It comes from when I was on a trauma team at the hospital. I saw young children being brought into the hospital with SIDS [Sudden Infant Death Syndrome]. And it was very frightening to me in the beginning. Before, when I would get called to the ER room, I would sit in my office and I'd think, "Please, please give me the courage to be able to work and never do any harm, but to do my very best to help these families." One evening this young, wonderful little families' baby boy died. Before the family left the hospital, they handed me this baby to hold and they said, "Would you take care of him until they come to get him?" I'm holding this baby and I sat down - I can remember it as well as anything - I sat down on the sofa and I started looking at this child, this beautiful, beautiful child that had only been loaned to us for such a brief period of time and the reality of death overcame me. The parents had this wonderful privilege of this child and now the baby was returning home. And I looked at this baby, I looked at his little face, his hands, his legs and I saw he was so peaceful, so calm. There was no stress on this baby. There was no stress around his little eyes or face. Through experiences such as that, I realized that we're never asked to do anything here on earth that we can not handle. It's just in how we process any challenge that we have. Death is a challenge. Those are big words: "You're going to die." We're all so different and we're going to take this journey in our own way. This can be a very positive journey for all of us.
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