i've read this passage from "walden" about 7 times already this week

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

some thoughts on volunteering in hospice care

Yesterday I felt so posh as I walked down Main Street in Salt Lake and into a high rise of condominiums, pushing the call button and taking the elevator up 11 stories to see a family benefiting from hospice care. The condo was about what I imagined, nicely decorated though perhaps a bit outmoded (some walls were completely covered in mirror). The lady of the house greeted me, showed me where the cranberry juice was in the fridge, and then introduced me to her husband. He, like all other hospice care patients, is terminally ill and he looked like it more than the other people I have visited with. He was lying on his bed, naked but for the brief clutched to his groin, and an aide was trying to help him get into his wheelchair for a sponge bath and a bed change. I stood by, holding the wheelchair in place as the aide lifted the man and placed him in it. For all the sagging skin, I imagine he has lost some weight due to the cancer, and his joints appeared swollen while his flaccid muscles seemed to hang from protruding bones. I could see the shape of his femur quite clearly. Yet his face held a certain dignity, and he vocalized his concerns and his desire to do as much as he could by himself.

This striking scene represented one thought in my mind: no matter what we do in life, no matter what our career is or how much money we make, we can find ourselves dependent on someone to wash our body, change our briefs, and hand over the pee bottle when needed. How is that for the end of a life?

But there's more. While I was sitting in that gentleman's bedroom, his daughter who lives nearby came over. She crawled on the bed, kissing her father's taught forehead, and asked him if he wanted something to eat, with such love effusing from her eyes that it was impossible not to smile. She returned with toast and soft-boiled eggs, which she fed to him slowly and carefully. She even shared her cigarette with him. Later, when his wife returned, the three of them were gathered together on his bed, smiling, laughing, talking about the gigantic calculator his wife had just bought (a Brookstone model--it was enormous).

The redeeming value of seeing people who are suffering and dying is seeing their loved ones gathered around them, making their last weeks/days/hours precious to them. They need one another to the very end. I have been impressed in this way each time I meet the family of the hospice patient. I see the concern and love in their interactions with their loved ones. A wife sponging the lips of her unconscious husband as he struggles to breathe. A social worker massaging a dying woman's dry hands with lotion that smells like freesia. A grandson visiting his grandfather who has large, visible tumors on top of his head. These images will stay with me forever.

As I've been able to live a little in the shoes of hospice workers, I come to believe more and more in the mission of hospice care: to help those who are dying to pass away with dignity and humanity. Once again I have been reminded that people matter, up to and even beyond their last breath. A human being is such a powerful, beautiful creation, always deserving respect. I feel so blessed to have observed and participated in the dying process of a few individuals this summer, each of whom was a unique, beautiful, valuable soul.