I've been volunteering for hospice for four years. It's been a remarkable experience. I've met some wonderful people and I've grown a lot; gaining serenity and becoming more compassionate.
The modern hospice movement was founded in 1950 with the philosophy that no one should die alone or be alone in aiding the dying. It provides services for people with six months or less to live and support for their families. Sometimes these services prolong life; always they improve its quality.
In general, since becoming a volunteer, I find I have become more patient, less irritable, and friendlier just walking around. It's impossible, after summoning up the love to listen to the stories of someone with Alzheimer's or to sit beside someone who is actively dying, to just go back to being your grumpy old self. It may sound odd, but I've also learned it's never too late to make a friend. And I'm no longer afraid to sing aloud or hold someone's hand if it seems like the thing to do.
Hospice has also led me in some new and interesting directions in my reading life. Some of the books I've read are directly related to, and meant to inform, my hospice work. In other readings, I've noted hospice themes.
Here are the top 10 books I've read as a hospice volunteer. There are more; I keep a hospice shelf on Goodreads.
10. Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat (2010) by David Dosa. This is a cute story about a cat who holds vigil at the bedsides of people dying in an assisted living facility. It includes insights about the value of hospice care and the struggles of people caring for loved ones with dementia. My husband listened to this on audiobook and recommended it to me. He said it gave him a better understanding of what a hospice volunteer does.
9. Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal (1997) by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. I read this after listening to a workshop with Remen and Frank Ostaseski of the Metta Institute, which provides training to promote mindful and compassionate end-of-life care.
I loved these quotes by Remen:
See my review.
7. Poems by Emily Dickinson
Robbins makes the case that we should be able to look forward to growing old and enjoy our maturity — not fear it. How to dance at 100? The tenets are: eat plants, be active, volunteer, and love and be loved. Interestingly, he recommends hospice volunteering in his Steps You Can Take to stay healthy.
I appreciated these quotes included in the book:
5. Islands (1975) by Marta Randall. This is the kind of book I would love to write. It's about a mortal living and aging in a world of immortals.
4. Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease (2009) edited by Holly Hughes. These are needful, well-wrought pieces filled with compelling ideas, emotions and memories. I like to reread Linda Alexander's "Time With the Dying," before heading out to volunteer.
See my review.
3. The Death of Ivan Ilyitch (1886) by Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy displays a mastery of compassion and empathy in this story, which shows what it is like to die alone, in the sense that no one acknowledges your imminent death or can be bothered to disturb their life to consider what dying means for you and join you in the process.
This story illustrates the isolation people with a terminal diagnosis, especially cancer patients (read also: How We Die, by Sherwin Nuland), undergo today. Friends and family may be afraid to broach the momentous subject of dying with the person or deny that treatment of the illness is over and, instead, the process of dying has begun. The Death of Ivan Ilyich provides the perspective of the dying man and his reaction to this treatment.
2. The Gifts of the Body (1994) by Rebecca Brown. This book tackles death, dying, pain, fear, grief, the body, and loss in stories of a home care worker assisting AIDS patients on hospice in the 80s (Brown was a home-care worker in San Francisco at that time). The beautiful truth of this story left me weeping.
See my review.
1. Using the Power of Hope to Cope with Dying: The Four Stages of Hope (2008) by Cathleen, Fanslow-Brunjes. I had the opportunity to take a Therapeutic Touch workshop with Fanslow-Brunjes — it was phenomenal.
This book tells some simple, but powerful, truths based upon the author's more than 35 years of experience working with the dying.
The basic needs of the dying are also those of the living:
• The need to know they will not be abandoned.
• The need for self-expression.
• The need for hope.
See my review.
The modern hospice movement was founded in 1950 with the philosophy that no one should die alone or be alone in aiding the dying. It provides services for people with six months or less to live and support for their families. Sometimes these services prolong life; always they improve its quality.
In general, since becoming a volunteer, I find I have become more patient, less irritable, and friendlier just walking around. It's impossible, after summoning up the love to listen to the stories of someone with Alzheimer's or to sit beside someone who is actively dying, to just go back to being your grumpy old self. It may sound odd, but I've also learned it's never too late to make a friend. And I'm no longer afraid to sing aloud or hold someone's hand if it seems like the thing to do.
Hospice has also led me in some new and interesting directions in my reading life. Some of the books I've read are directly related to, and meant to inform, my hospice work. In other readings, I've noted hospice themes.
Here are the top 10 books I've read as a hospice volunteer. There are more; I keep a hospice shelf on Goodreads.
10. Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat (2010) by David Dosa. This is a cute story about a cat who holds vigil at the bedsides of people dying in an assisted living facility. It includes insights about the value of hospice care and the struggles of people caring for loved ones with dementia. My husband listened to this on audiobook and recommended it to me. He said it gave him a better understanding of what a hospice volunteer does.
9. Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal (1997) by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. I read this after listening to a workshop with Remen and Frank Ostaseski of the Metta Institute, which provides training to promote mindful and compassionate end-of-life care.
I loved these quotes by Remen:
"And the heart is not a valentine. The heart is an organ of perception, a way of seeing which allows you recognize the hidden wholeness in others — despite appearances." — Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.8. An Eagle Named Freedom: My True Story of a Remarkable Friendship (2010) by Jeff Guidry. I had the opportunity to hear Guidry talk to a group of hospice volunteers and meet the eagle, Freedom. He tells a touching story of rescuing the eagle at Sarvey Wildlife Care Center in Arlington, Wash. and of his own journey of recovery from cancer.
"What if despite appearances the world is not broken? The world is hidden and we have been born with the capacity to make a difference." — Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
See my review.
7. Poems by Emily Dickinson
Each that we lose takes part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
"Love"6. Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World's Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples (2006) by John Robbins. There's no question that doing hospice work makes you interested in staying healthy, active and able to care for yourself for as long as possible.
Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation,and
The exponent of breath.
Robbins makes the case that we should be able to look forward to growing old and enjoy our maturity — not fear it. How to dance at 100? The tenets are: eat plants, be active, volunteer, and love and be loved. Interestingly, he recommends hospice volunteering in his Steps You Can Take to stay healthy.
I appreciated these quotes included in the book:
"A society's quality and durability can best be measured by the respect and care given to its elder citizens." — Arnold Toynbee
"Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that aging means decline and poor health is probably the deadliest." — Marilyn FergusonSee my review.
5. Islands (1975) by Marta Randall. This is the kind of book I would love to write. It's about a mortal living and aging in a world of immortals.
4. Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease (2009) edited by Holly Hughes. These are needful, well-wrought pieces filled with compelling ideas, emotions and memories. I like to reread Linda Alexander's "Time With the Dying," before heading out to volunteer.
See my review.
3. The Death of Ivan Ilyitch (1886) by Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy displays a mastery of compassion and empathy in this story, which shows what it is like to die alone, in the sense that no one acknowledges your imminent death or can be bothered to disturb their life to consider what dying means for you and join you in the process.
This story illustrates the isolation people with a terminal diagnosis, especially cancer patients (read also: How We Die, by Sherwin Nuland), undergo today. Friends and family may be afraid to broach the momentous subject of dying with the person or deny that treatment of the illness is over and, instead, the process of dying has begun. The Death of Ivan Ilyich provides the perspective of the dying man and his reaction to this treatment.
"There was no deceiving himself: something terrible, new, and more important than anything before in his life, was taking place within him of which he alone was aware. Those about him did not understand or would not understand it, but thought everything in the world was going on as usual." — although he cannot talk about it with friends, family or his doctors, who all continue to treat his illness, Ivan Ilyich acknowledges the gravity and import of his situationSee my review.
2. The Gifts of the Body (1994) by Rebecca Brown. This book tackles death, dying, pain, fear, grief, the body, and loss in stories of a home care worker assisting AIDS patients on hospice in the 80s (Brown was a home-care worker in San Francisco at that time). The beautiful truth of this story left me weeping.
See my review.
1. Using the Power of Hope to Cope with Dying: The Four Stages of Hope (2008) by Cathleen, Fanslow-Brunjes. I had the opportunity to take a Therapeutic Touch workshop with Fanslow-Brunjes — it was phenomenal.
This book tells some simple, but powerful, truths based upon the author's more than 35 years of experience working with the dying.
The basic needs of the dying are also those of the living:
• The need to know they will not be abandoned.
• The need for self-expression.
• The need for hope.
See my review.
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