Being the daughter of a small-town pastor dad and a nurse mom, I learned at an early age how to be around people who were hurting. Answering the phone to take a message for my Dad that somebody's husband or father or sister had just died came quite naturally to me. I knew what to say, what not to say, and how to change the tone in my voice to convey my sympathy. Most certainly it was one of the many seeds planted to lead me where I am now as a hospice nurse.
But while I understand the nuances of how to be with people who are sick, hurting, grieving, or dying, I am not immune to its sadness. Last weekend I took care of Louise, a woman dying of cancer that I had formed a special relationship with. Three weeks before that she had been smiling, and we had many important conversations and formed a meaningful connection. "I'll never forget you, Kirsten," she told me at the end of my first shift with her, and she looked up at me and beamed. But now, Louise lay without expression, unresponsive and dying. People die at the hospice. That's what they come here for. But watching her die was very sad. I put my face close to hers and told her who I was, and thanked her for always making my days meaningful. And in her unresponsiveness, I saw her mouth move a little, her closed eyelids blink ever so slightly, her eyebrows twitch. She had heard me.
I was called into another room, where a daughter thought her mother, the patient, had stopped breathing. I stood over her mother and listened with my stethoscope for a while, then told her that yes, she had died. Giving this news to family members is one of my least favorite things, knowing that when I look up to say the words, it will unleash the most raw of emotions, at an intensity that surprises family members who really thought they were ready to say goodbye. The words I say, "she has died," mark the beginning of an end, a turning point in lives, the time when everything for them changes permanently. That's a lot to carry.
So when I was called into Louise's room just as I had walked out of that one, I had to take a deep breath and recognize the levity of what I was doing. Now I listened to Louise with my stethoscope. "She has died." And it occurred to me that while I was very sad, I was very lucky. I got to be one of the last voices Louise heard in this life, telling her how she made mine better.
Down the hall a dying, retired physician asked me how I came to be interested in being a hospice nurse. I told him I liked the emotional connections I can make with patients and their families; I like that because I specialize in what I do, I can tell people what to expect about dying and I see their fears immediately dissipate; I like that I know I can make people feel better, manage their pain and symptoms and get them comfortable. And then I went on to alleviate this man's pain, address his concerns and support his family.
I have seen sad. I have said goodbye to more Louises than I can possibly count. I have had to look into the faces of mothers, sons, and sisters and tell them that their loved ones have died. I have watched parents bury their children. I have entered the homes of ill children the same ages as my own, with the same hair color, the same pajamas, and the same toys. I have seen marathon runners die of lung cancer, and young children lose their parents. I have seen sad.
But I have also held the hands of the dying, watched them smell cookies that I just pulled out of the oven. I have been thanked, hugged, kissed, and told I am loved, by families but also by the dying, which is the most genuine of gratitudes. I have spoken the last words a dying person has heard, said the last prayer they prayed. I have the privilege of sharing the most intimate, precarious, raw, and vulnerable moments a family may ever experience. I have seen life, at its most real, at its most rich. I have seen sad. But I have seen life.
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Tonight I walk in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. I walk because I miss my Grandfathers, my Aunt, and Gin. I walk because I'm grateful that cancer research has saved the lives of countless friends and family that surround me today. I walk for your Louise. For your grandparents, parents, children, and friends. For the those that grieve, for those that rejoice. For life.
To donate, please visit:
http://main.acsevents.org/goto/happybirthdayGin
Thank you!
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