Snippets from the Life of a Hospice Chaplain

Her interfaith training and background with the Writings of Swedenborg combine to provide Julie with an ability to reach out to and serve people of many denominations in her role as a hospice chaplain. Julie shares this week about some of the wonderful people she has met and the some of the reasons she feels blessed to be doing this work. -Editor.

I feel truly blessed to have spent more than 4 ½ years as a hospice chaplain. I am with people in some of the most difficult moments of their life, both for those on our service and those who love them. It’s a profession some people might find morbid. I am with people who are either very ill, very frail, or no longer able to communicate, either because of dementia or other illnesses, and who are not expected to live longer than six months. Yet it’s a profession to which I believe I’ve been led. Most of our people are in facilities, but a few are in their own homes, living with a friend or family member, or occasionally in hospital.

So why do I feel so blessed? Firstly I get to be with the best team of people I have ever worked with: physicians, nurses, aides, volunteers, social workers, my chaplain colleague and the admin team who keeps the business running. We have a simple goal: to support people, and their families, on hospice and give them comfort, dignity and quality of life for their last moments in this world, whether that’s literally a few moments or 2 ½ years.

Secondly once people have gotten over the hurdle of knowing they or their loved ones are going to die they are usually very appreciative of our support and can’t thank us enough. Occasionally people are disappointed the aide isn’t going to be there 24/7 (sadly Medicare/Medicaid won’t pay for that), but once they understand they are grateful for what we can provide.

Yet it’s not all blessings: it can be very hard to visit someone for a long time, get to know and love them, and then let them go. I still remember my little Baptist lady who loved our spiritual conversations about the Bible. I miss her lots, yet I know she is very happy having those conversations in the next world. I visited a relatively young woman and was sad seeing how much her family were grieving their imminent loss. Her son asked me how I could do this: didn’t it tear me up inside? I replied it was an honor to serve them, yet I cried much of the way home. Many of us in hospice have had a loved one on hospice, so there can be stinging reminders of our own loss, but the benefit of serving others in this way brings great joy and alleviates some of that pain.

Sometimes we watch helplessly as the families deny signing their loved one on our service, either because they’re in denial or they have some mistaken idea of what hospice is. At those times I am very grateful for those wonderful “spiritual hospice workers,” i.e. the angels. Some people mistakenly believe we aid death; remove all meds so their loved one suffers: it’s actually the reverse for this one; that to sign someone on hospice means they’ve given up hope, etc. Sometimes the patient is even actually “actively dying” as the family members argue what to do. This is a strange phrase that means the patient will not be turning back to this world, usually anyway, although there have been some rare exceptions to this. They will have become unresponsive, may be breathing unevenly or have apnea, have a rapid heart rate and perhaps the extremities will have become blue or purple as the body works to keep the brain and heart alive called “mottling.” Not all patients follow this path though.

Even in facilities some aides may not recognize a person in that phase; one time an aide brought in a patient’s lunch who was actively dying. I told her he wouldn’t need it. When she asked why I told her he was dying and if she tried to feed him he would aspirate. It makes me sad to think that some haven’t been educated to recognize those signs in a population that usually leaves the facility for the other world.

Some people actually make it longer than the estimated 6 months, but continue to stay on the service because they still meet the requirements, and some come off our service because they improve with all that TLC. The latter is known as a “live discharge.”

As a chaplain my goal is to provide spiritual and emotional support to the people I serve in whatever form the person prefers, if they are happy with my visits of course. This could be deep spiritual conversation, my reading the Bible to them and discussing what that means in their lives, prayers, blessings, or just talking about friends, family and the weather. Most of the people I serve are Catholic, many are Protestant, with a smattering of Jewish people and agnostics. The first memorial service I did was for an agnostic English gentleman whose wife struggled to give him hope when he was alive because she had doubts herself. She had initially declined my visits, but was persuaded to let me come by the nurse. When it came to removing his feeding tube she said her mind was on board: she just wished her heart could catch up. She didn’t know if there was a life after death or not, so I asked her if she thought her love for her husband would die with him after 50+ years. She said No, so I asked her if that might indicate love was eternal? My role is not to proselytize or convert: just to provide ideas from what people know, love and have experienced.

I’ve even had a Buddhist gentleman on the service. I was so grateful for my chaplaincy training, which provided material for so many other faiths. I was able to say a Buddhist prayer for this dying man. I have read the Vidui to a dying Jewish lady while her daughter said it in Hebrew; several times I have given “Last Rites,” now called Anointing of the Sick, to Catholics whose priest was not available or who didn’t have one. Obviously I am not a Catholic priest, but as many people have noted: “there is only One God,” so they are content for me to read the Catholic prayer for the dying, read a Psalm, usually 23 but could be 121, sing to their loved one, listen to the stories, say prayers, bless them all, and I often get to hug them if they’re willing: one of the benefits of being a woman minister. Some have even told the nurse I gave the patient Last Rites.

So how does a Swedenborgian woman support all these different faiths? The answer is part training/part acceptance. I spent 2 ½ years training to be an interfaith minister and was ordained 2 years ago. During that amazing training I got to see the Divine at work; every faith we studied in the first 15 months had a core belief in a Creator and serving others, just that simple. In fact a colleague in the program remarked facetiously how boring this was: that all faiths were the same. One of our teachers illustrated it thus: the Divine is like an oilfield, the different religions like different companies extracting the oil, but there’s still only one field. The Divine obviously treasures variety as a way to lead people to heaven.

What an interesting teacher he was too. He was a Catholic priest, trained in the Vatican, but left it because he didn’t believe in celibacy. He married his lovely wife in his 40s and still loves his Catholic roots.

I usually offer to read the Bible to my patients. For those who don’t speak I have found many do respond differently to the Bible than to regular conversation: one Portuguese lady said Amen after I finished reading to her. Usually I read a couple of Psalms, stories about the Children of Israel or from the prophets with a couple of extracts from the Gospels, or even Revelation, adding Christmas and Easter readings as the seasons come around. After reading I share simple ideas of how this might help us. Jewish people readily identify that crossing the Red Sea might indicate our journey into the next world; I had one Jewish lady tell me just that. I read the entire Sermon on the Mount to one Catholic gentleman at his request. After I finished he remarked “There’s nothing more to say is there?” We had such wonderful conversations about the Bible.

One dear lady, who lived in a horrid facility, had such a beautiful positive attitude to those around her. She was totally bedbound and others had to see to her needs. The last time I visited she told me she’d been thinking: Jesus must have been God in order to do what He did in this world. I’m not sure her Catholic priest would agree. Another Catholic lady remarked I wasn’t Catholic was I? I told her No, but I was Christian. When she asked what kind she then asked what was Swedenborgianism. I held the Bible in my hand and told her this was my foundation, but I had the writings of Swedenborg to explain the paradoxes. Looking back I’m not sure that was totally accurate: there are quite a few paradoxes in the Writings themselves, but she was content. Many people don’t ask about my faith, but I tell them if they do.

Some of my favorite stories center around Christmas, my favorite season. I was visiting a very ill man and asked him if he’d like to hear the Christmas story. He said “The Christmas story!” and his eyes positively glowed throughout the reading. I have not seen that before or since, and that vivid image of how much he loved the story has stayed with me. I was delighted to know he was going to spend Christmas in the other world. Sometimes I don’t get to visit a new patient because they transition very quickly. Often I don’t call the relatives, but for some reason I did this time. The daughter was so grateful I called. As her mother was dying she told me she heard/felt/saw her grandmother, a very loving woman, cradle her mother in her arms and take her. She couldn’t tell what senses were used - probably her spiritual ones - but it gave her so much comfort to know her Mum was safe and cared for. The daughter had never married and she and her Mum were close.

There is great power in music I’ve discovered. I’m so grateful for 2 years of voice lessons and about 15-20 years in choirs. I was initially concerned that I might not be able to support Catholics as well as they might need until I realized I could sing the Magnificat to them; the son of one lady told everyone at her memorial service that I sang the Magnificat to her. My mother used to sing the old songs to me, so I have sung them for others, even including singing Karaoke at one facility. Being involved with people in the facilities helps too: we have provided education, Celebrations of Life, as well as memorial services, and Yes, I’ve sung there too.

There have been sad situations too, but even there there is redemption. I’ve had 3 young men on the service, all in comas due respectively to attempted suicide, car accident and one unknown. In the saddest, the attempted suicide, the mother told me the 10 years he’d been in (mostly) facilities were the best years of her life. The Lord brings good out of utter sadness that’s for sure, and I’m truly honored to have walked a little way with these folks on their spiritual journeys.

Julie Conaron

Julie is a former microbiologist now a second career chaplain and interfaith minister. Born and raised in the UK she came to the States in ‘79 when her husband was transferred here via Iran. Her husband David left this world in 2003 via ALS and it changed her life. She has 4 grown sons, 3 daughters-in-law, almost 5 grandchildren and a full life. She is studying on line with the Swedenborg House of Studies to become a Convention Minister.