Yes, have the priest anoint me !
I don't want to die alone !
Play a harp
for my father !
No, don't talk to me about God !
But
when this perishable [ body] will have put on [ what
is ] imperishable…then will come about
the saying…
'O death, where is your sting ? ' ( the Apostle Paul,
1 Corinthians, 15: 54, 55 )
By Robert R. Schwarz
This
report is about last words and thoughts of patients, people like you and me— dying in a
hospice. It is also about the necessary compassion and fortitude
of two chaplains and a
physician who care for these
patients. Your Exodus Trekker reporter recently interviewed these three
dedicated caregivers at different
hospices; though having varied
backgrounds ,they share two strong
beliefs :
Ø Dying and suffering of patients often evoke joyful life-defining moments from
changed relationships with loved ones
and hospice caregivers.
Ø Much of the medical
profession and public is ignorant of
the true hospice mission; equally
important is that both doctors and family members of the dying should stop
being shy or overly tactful when talking to each other about a patient's
impending death
We'll start with Joseph…
During our interview, Joseph often expressed himself as
an evangelist might ; he believes that "Jesus invites all of us day by day
to grow through dying and rising . "
This is especially true, he said, of hospice patients who, along with
their caregivers , need to be aware of
this cycle . " I'm honored and privileged to hear my patients share their life stories." His check- list for patient care-giving includes : listening with
empathy, easing anxiety in times of their uncertainty, encouraging courage, and
reminding them that God loves them. He emphasized, "People need to know that they are being cared for ,
"
Joseph's expresses
other spiritual beliefs by painting them
. On his
office walls are abstract renderings of paintings depicting God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit . Several have cosmic or nature backgrounds
.
" Every One Should Die Well "
Dr. Mackie was born in Stroger hospital, did her
internship here, and daily sees as many at 12 patients ; most are low income or indigent
Afro-Americans and Hispanics . She considers her entire 20 years here as
one life milestone . As an aside, she added, '' My role is also to make sure that the
Afro-American community is educated [ about dying ] so it can be empowered .
"
Joe , our other chaplain,
is three years older than Joseph,
and has seen suffering and dying of nearly 150 patients since coming 2 ½
years ago to Vista Hospice in Waukegan, Illinois. He had been director of
medical information and review at a pharmaceutical company, and has been a registered pharmacist since 1971 . Joe was ordained a deacon in 2013 at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.
Vista is not a faith-based hospital , but
Joe sees patients of all of denominations and once had to find a rabbi
for a patient. Joe's core beliefs are
his three P's: pulse,
presence , and prayers.
Pulse means Joe has to be a live
person. "Sometimes it’s more of
a matter of bringing comfort to the family," he said ,
especially when "the patient is journeying to this sacred period in his life, when they're
getting ready to transition from their
earthly life to their eternal life. "
For Dr. Mackie , who is a
practicing Roman Catholic , her
most important life lesson came from
a 103-year-old Baptist woman for whom
she was caring. Though her patient was
dying, "she had a "very positive attitude until the end
, " Dr, Mackie related.
" What she taught me was to be grateful for every situation we have
in life, whether good or bad . The key is to look at the situation and process
it. If a mistake, it doesn’t have to be
a mistake for the entire day. "
From some dying
patients, this physician occasionally hears a "confession" ,
like that of a narcotic addict who
told her he had "broken bonds and
bridges to his family ." He
admitted , " I did this all to myself," and now wanted his family to take him back home . But he doubted if they would forgive him. Dr.
Mackie told him, " You know, we can blow up bridges but that doesn't mean they can never be repaired. "
" I'm Dying. What Is God Doing for Me ? "
 |
| Dr.Mackie in her examining room at Stroger hospital |
" I then asked him," Dr. Mackie said, " if it was important for him to have
the anointing of the sick by a priest ? , and he said 'yes. ' A priest came in and we left it at
that."
Another patient of hers died an atheist . "I had
told him I wasn't there to change his perception about God, that is not my
skill set. But I respected his belief. "
( Hospital chaplains cannot
minister to patients unless the patient has requested it. )
Do her patients ever talk about heaven?
" I have to be honest with
you," she said. " We move them out as quick as we can. They don't even have time to process a lot of
things. Some die quickly because we get
patients so advanced and so late. " (Stroger does not have an actual
hospice unit but relies on four hospice stations outside the hospital. )
Religious faith has always played a role in her medical practice, Dr. Mackie
said. "When dealing with people who are impoverished, you have to have the
energy to more forward and sometimes just leaning on your faith is what makes
it happen. " When she is down, her
favorite prayer is Psalm 23.
"Yet, sometimes I don't have
anything to offer my patients except kind words. "
Dr. Mackie is the
youngest of four brothers and three sisters and
was raised in the Chicago
Afro-American community of Englewood , where she became aware that a
"lot of people were dying there yet nobody was talking about it. And I
said, let's change some of this
and let's have a conversation. So that 's what led me into palliative care .
" Today Orlanda is an advocate of open , honest "conversation
" between hospice patients, their families, and
especially doctors , many of whom she
maintains are "afraid " to
have an honest , no-holds-barred
dialogue about death and dying.
One of her biggest challenges is "to make people understand what I
actually do. It's not all about dying. Not all my patients die. " Before graduating from a medical school on
the West Indies island of Dominica, Dr. Mackie
taught special education classes in a Chicago public school.
What Motivated Them to Be
a Hospice Chaplain ?
Obviously, a chaplain like Joseph or Joe needs more that comfort skills to be steadfast with compassion
for the suffering and dying
day after day. Joe and Joseph
would agree that some aspects of hospice care money cannot buy. Is it something
the caregiver is born with, an attribute
which develops from self- discipline and
experience ? I asked Joseph.
 |
| Joseph with two chaplain colleagues: The Rev. Janet Frystak of Christ Victor Lutheran Church in Elk Grove, IL, and The Rev. John Bushi, a Mennonite from St. Peter Lutheran Church in Schaumburg, IL. |
Joseph satisfied my curiosity by relating two events .The first was his surviving triple heart bypass surgery in late
2015 . "The doctor told me [
afterwards ] , 'Joseph, you're a miracle
' You survived it ! ' "
"And now, Bob,
I'm a changed person as a result of that experience ! I look at life now in a much more hope-filled
way. I really wasn't meant to survive this .There must be something that the
Lord wants me to do. And so now I've been given a second chance , and so I'm not going to waste it because
every minute of my time now is very valuable and important. I' m devoting my
life and all my energies to those people who are grieving and suffering and
dying. "
The other inciting experience which strengthened the calling of Joseph's ministry occurred at Lourdes, France, known for decades for
testimonials from people who claimed they
had been healed there of various
illnesses and disabilities . Joseph was
standing at the cave site where the Virgin Mary
was seen by Saint Bernadette in
1858 , an apparition known today
as Our Lady of Lourdes. He said that the
minute he touched the rock and the flowing water
from the spring from which Bernadette had drunk, he had goose bumps. " I knew I was in a holy place. "
Joseph then help lift up the arm of a frail woman with an
oxygen tank at her side so she could
touch what he had just touched. "I
looked at the expression on that sick person's face and sensed that a peace, an indescribable transformation had taken place in her. And
this was affirming to me that the hospice work I was doing is what I'm supposed to be doing.
" Though the woman walked away with her oxygen tank
with no outward appearance of being healed,
Joseph said , "I knew that
she was healed emotionally and spiritually. "
Dying to Harp Music ( really )
A few days after our interview, I visited Joseph to check
on a few facts. He was still feeling the emotions of an event two days earlier in the room of dying man whose
two daughters One of the daughters was thanking Joseph having brought a priest
in to anoint her father before he
died. She started to cry when she
recalled that father had hired a harpist
for her wedding . " "Then she said," Joseph told
me, " ' I want to pay my father
back and have a harp player here when he is dying.'"
" We do this
at times; harp music gives a calming presence ." Joseph said.
Joseph left to room to fetch a harpist named Tony , who soon arrived and
started to play his harp. Hospice harp
music, Joseph explained, keeps rhythm with the patient's breathing. The father could not speak,
but Joseph noticed he had been
"tracking their conversation. "
The father
died the next day. His wife had died in this same hospice.
 |
| Joseph's favorite painting, The Goodness of Life . Light does shine through our darkness and difficulties, he believes. |
There often is no way to explain why our creator permits
some
things to happen.
To give meaning to life, to make sense out of it all, is
only
possible
through the eyes of faith in a God who never
ceases
to love us.
God of day and night, you journey with us through
darkness
into light.
Your are love that
dispels the suffering of our heart
and
mine.
You are healing for the body.
Your are peaceful light that helps us live in the
hopefulness of life.
Amen.
"It's the Sort of
Thing
the Spirit Leads
You Into "
 |
| Deacon Joe outside a McDonald's after coffee with Bob |
We had met for coffee at a McDonald's oasis on a toll way
near Lake Forest, Illinois. Joe is six feet tall , has white hair and brown eyes, and was wearing blue jeans
and a long-sleeved red and black
check shirt. Joe is a mild- mannered man whose personality often includes a
smile when he talks to you. Unlike Joseph, he is frugal with words; this begs a
journalist for follow-up questions
. He is married, has two sons, and was
one of ten children . After his father died at age 36, leaving Joe's mother
to raise five of them at
pre-school age , Joe , then only
ten, began paying room and board to his mother by working in a drug store .
When asked what
events in life shaped his the most, Joe
had to paused and reflect. He went through a list of events:
One of his brothers was still-
born; three of his high school classmates died ; and, unbelievably, his father , uncle, and
grandfather all died on a Dec. 19. It
all made Joe realize "that we are going to face a death and, because of
that fact, I'm not uncomfortable about
talking about death . " Today he finds that many of his patients , though
not uncomfortable when talking about
death to a stranger, are so when
speaking to a family member.
Unforgettable patients ?
Joe had just made a home visit to a World War II
infantry veteran , a cancer patient ,
when much later he remembered
that he had never thanked him for this veteran's service.
Joe learned that his patient had
been a German soldier in the war and was a "very strong Christian " who emigrated to America
. "I didn't harbor any bitter
feeling about him ," Joe said, upon
realizing this man could have been
shooting at his father, who had been an American combat
soldier in Germany during the war.
Joe, who is also a
deacon in his church, also recalled an
elderly patient dying from cancer, who " made it
absolutely clear he was an atheist " . ( Medicare requires that hospice
patients be given an option to accept or decline chaplain visits ; Joe and Joseph made it clear that giving
religious care to a patient who has declined it
can do more harm than good. ) Joe's
patient said he could deal with dying but not pain. His wife was a Catholic Christian. Nevertheless, he agreed to seeing Joe every
other week. Said Joe, " We developed
a friendship . We had a mutual respect for each other and didn't get into deep
discussions but he would talk a bit about why he was convinced there was no
God. I did not argue with him, nor try to convert him. "
One day Joe's
atheist friend , with his wife in the room, asked Joe to arrange a funeral service for him " His bones were deteriorating and he was becoming slowly
paralyzed," Joe said. . " He told me , ' at one time I hoped I would
have no pain but now I have no feeling whatsoever ' "
One week before his death
the man was unable to speak, and Joe read to him a chapter from a book
written by the noted Catholic author, Fr. James Martin , S.J.. Joe told him to signal any time he
wanted Joe to stop reading. Joe read the
entire chapter .
What was his reaction ? I asked Joe. " He showed me
two thumbs up . " Joe does not know
if his patient at the end had refused or
accepted Christian beliefs, though at
the man's funeral Joe saw a crucifix above his casket.
" We are dealing with people with denial and disbelief "
 |
| Joseph giving communion in the hospital chapel to Eucharistic ministers he has trained for their visits to shut-ins. |
Joseph's comment
prompted the question of
" is this a good thing? "
Replied Joseph, "Yes, if it's good for them and it helps them
dealing with suffering and dying. What I've learned is that we need to be
present with these people in a loving
way, to accept them in the moment wherever they are, and bring them love, a
listening presence, and compassion. Every day we are dealing with people who
are dealing with denial and disbelief. 'Why do I have cancer, why is this
happening to me? ' They are dealing with a lot of heavy stuff, and if I can
bring a listening ear and a compassionate heart to them, then that's good.
That's what any wonderful hospice program should be all about, and that 's what
we do there. "
Joseph's words made me recall holding my mother's hand as she died while I
prayed Psalm 23 , and talking to my brother during his last few,
pitiful days on a hospice respirator .
We talked about doubt and heaven and hell. Joseph agreed
that the last weapon of the devil is to
sow doubt in the patient about God and heaven. He believes that at the very end
of life of a person who has lived a wicked life and now still denies God's
existence, that God "gives him a second chance " to convert. Joseph offered no comment on hell , but did say
"we need to be accountable for the mistakes we have made if life.
" Family members of patients have
asked Joseph questions about heaven and hell many times . Joseph tells
them: "There are a lot of
things we don't understand " . He
assures them, however, that
" the Lord is in the midst of the suffering of their loved one. "
At 9:15 a.m. each morning Joseph leads a group of six or more Catholic
Eucharistic ministers from nearby parishes,
in a communion service in the hospital chapel. One of the ministers told
this reporter that " Joseph has a real passion for what he does. He tries
to train the best people for the job. "
The act of leaving his office at day's end sometimes saddens Joseph. To restore himself,
he says he then needs to be alone in his
condominium. After long moments of silence, he
might turn on television and watch "political stuff "—he says
he's on the liberal and of things—or go
out with his "supportive family of friends " for a pizza.
On the wall today in the
hospice social worker's off ice hangs a colorful piece of art done by
crayons by a woman while dying of cancer.
Knowing the woman was artistic, the staff had brought her a coloring book, and she went
to work on it. "It was beautiful
!" Joseph exclaimed. "It
looked like a stain glass window. It was one of the very few behaviors she had
not lost. "
Patients Dying Alone Make This Physician Sad
 |
| Dr. Orlanda Mackie, hours away from a joyful trip to Disney Land , a birthday present to herself and nieces, and nephews |
When patients die alone sadden Dr. Mackie .
"Sometimes I just can’t change that, " she says with a sigh. Listening to jazz, particularly that of
deceased pianist Thelonias Monk , in the
apartment she shares with her sister,
picks her up. " I listen to music all the time." She also reads mysteries and books about Afro-American history. There is
no television set in her apartment. The doctor's favorite dish is baked chicken
with rice and vegetables . " I eat that just about every day.
" He sister does the cooking.
Perhaps Orlanda's greatest pleasure is
that trip on her birthdays with nephews
and nieces to Disneyland . That's where she was headed a few hours after our
interview.
Chaplain Joe sees an occasional movie and reads religious
books, giving some away as gifts such as
the classic The Imitation of Christ.
He tries to forget that "worst experience " of his life:
watching his adult son bury his own three-week-old son. But the tears which
were welling up as Joe related this at McDonald's , disappeared when our talk ended and he told me of his plans to drive 12 hours to see
his three grandchildren in Nashville, Tennessee.
When asked about his own death, Joe replied —smiling , of course—"I will
not have any epitaph on my tombstone. I'm being cremated. I've already
purchased a columbarium . It's just a
ten-by-ten."
The End
All comments are welcome.
rrschwarz7@wowway.com
© 2017 Robert R.
Schwarz
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