Without much conversation, he allowed new
"strangers" from "the community" into his home and
his life. One by one the entire hospice team entered
his room at 807: nurses and social workers, a
sports-loving chaplain, a volunteer, on-call nurses,
a nurse for daily dressing changes, companies
delivering oxygen, a wheelchair, a life line,
medications. Private-hire help got him through a
"spell." Through it all, he never talked about
hospice or dying or death. He was tied up with
living.
At the end of a tough summer, as I watched Bill
Moyers' four-part PBS series on dying, read the Time
magazine article on end of life care and listened to
my co-workers from hospice on local TV promoting
community end of life care, I was disappointed and
felt betrayed by my own romantic notions about what
the end of life should be. Where, I wondered, was
the growth and meaning at the end of life that
hospice workers often speak of? In all the time by
my father-in-law's bedside, I never heard those five
phrases that hospice physician Ira Byock suggests
dying people and their families need to say to one
another: Forgive me. I forgive you. Thank you. I
Love you. Good-bye. Where were those special dinners
with everyone looking clean and well rested, holding
hands? I clung to a notion of how things should be
for him and for me. It should be different. I never
expressed this to him, but sat by, always waiting
for that end of life miracle.
He had to leave the house at 807 and knowingly
accept a final move to Francis House (a residence
for eight terminally ill persons) in late August
with the hospicee team in tow. He graciously again
made new friends with their staff and wonderful
caring volunteers. He praised their food and ate
seconds; he allowed a wheelchair trip to the garden.
He reminisced with everyone who eagerly listened, he
watched TV, he slept during the day and night. When
we visited the only thing he wanted was for me to
hand him his razor. He shaved a lot. I visited with
volunteers at Francis House who had previously been
a part of my life and who were now a part of his.
Warren questioned but allowed a student aide to take
three hours to bathe him. He took phone calls from
family. As a Baptist he openly received the daily
visits and prayers of three Sisters of St. Francis.
In a semi-responsive state close to death, he
inquired about the hospicee chaplain's golf game. He
asked for a chocolate cannoli.
He swore and raged at his condition and he fought
dying. He could no longer walk or sit in a chair or
get dressed. His dentures fell out, he lost 60
pounds. His dressing changes were torture. There was
blood, there were unusual smells. He was agitated,
in pain and angry. Warren knew what he was choosing
when he decided against active treatment. His
spiritual beliefs and prayers comforted him about a
future with God and the reunion with his beloved
wife. But he hadn't chosen dying and he hated it.
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