Hospice Healings/Grief Myths

*In this post, I offer two readings about grief. The first describes a meaningful, personal experience from an earlier time in my life in ministry. The second names eight (8) misconceptions about grief and the grieving process. I hope you find them helpful. -bguffey

Hospice Healings

(Notes: I wrote this column to share with my hospice team colleagues and the congregation I was serving at the time. Both helped me grow deeper and wiser in the ways God works in our lives and in the world. / Also, in current practice, the use of the words "palliative care" and "hospice care" have changed. Both palliative care and hospice care focus on bringing comfort, care and quality of life to a person experiencing a serious illness. When I worked with hospice, both assumed a person was in the final weeks or months of life. Today, palliative care can be ongoing, while hospice care is seen as a type of palliative care offered in the final weeks or months of life. -BG)

My Thursdays have taken on new meaning this year as I have spent a portion of those days as a Chaplaincy Intern for a local hospital hospice. I sought out the assignment, in part, as a way to strengthen my short–term counseling skills. The return on the investment becomes richer and more humbling with each passing week.

Hospice is a program that provides humane, palliative care and attends to the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of terminally ill patients at an inpatient facility or, most often, at the patient's home. The treatment is “palliative” in that it provides symptom relief and pain management without effecting a cure. Patients come to hospice with the understanding that, for their illness, they will be healed but not on this side of life.

Recently, I had an extended visit with a patient living a short drive away from town who was a bright, young married woman and mother of three children. Before her diagnosis, she led an active life and was a leader in her community and in her church.

We talked of her work at the cancer survivors camp meeting regularly at nearby Camp Bethany, of her family, her former work life, her enjoyment at playing the piano, her work with musicians at her church and her love to sing.

She expressed her conviction that God had not abandoned her to her disease and that she would find healing in the next world if not in this one. She said she still prayed for healing but realized her cancer—a word she had no difficulty saying—could not be cured medically.

After about 40-45 minutes, we prayed and said our good-byes.

She struck me as a gentle, caring person who did not wish to die and leave her family, especially her children. She seemed to be the kind of person who would have many friends and be capable of deep relationships with people.

As I walked out the front door of her home, I noticed the sky heavy and gray. I said that line we often say when we have not much else to say, “Well, looks like it’s going to rain.” She responded, “It’ll get here when God is ready.”

As I drove away down a country road, I thought that perhaps for her that statement was true in terms of her death, as well. She stands in God’s hands. It’ll get here when God is ready.

A short distance down the road, raindrops began to fall, gentle drops splashing on the windshield of my old blue Nissan. They seemed to be teardrops falling from heaven. Teardrops of grace as gentle as her presence had been to me. Teardrops of God. Of sadness. Of joy. For her, in her suffering and in her healing, wherever it would occur.

As the rain slowed, I rounded another bend and heavy gray sky turned to blue.

A few weeks later, my new friend died. The next morning, another Thursday, as Susanna, my daughter, and I left for school and church, I could have sworn the air had the peculiar, cool, cleansing, healing feel of rain.

Grace and peace,

Bob Guffey

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Eight Myths about Grief

As a congregation, many of us are walking through another season when grief is a potent reality. In times like these, I have found these words from the Hospice Foundation of America helpful. I hope you will, too:

In order to effectively cope with loss, and to help others who are struggling, it is important to get past some of the common misconceptions about grief. The grieving process is a series of ups and downs, and often it’s more intense in the early years. The thing that we need to remember is that you never have to like a loss. To go forward, you have to learn to accept it and deal with it. A more accurate, honest understanding of the way grief affects us can help in our healing.

Myth 1: We only grieve deaths.                  

Reality: We grieve all losses.

Myth 2: Only family members grieve.        

Reality: All who are attached grieve.

Myth 3: Grief is an emotional reaction.     

Reality: Grief is manifested in many ways.

Myth 4: Individuals should leave grieving at home.         

Reality: We cannot control where we grieve.

Myth 5: We slowly and predictably recover from grief.   

Reality: Grief is an uneven process, a roller coaster

                  with no timeline.

Myth 6: Grieving means letting go of the person who died.         

Reality: We never fully detach from those who have died.

Myth 7: Grief finally ends.  

Reality: Over time most people learn to live with loss.

Myth 8: Grievers are best left alone.          

Reality: Grievers need opportunities to share their memories

                  and grief, and to receive support.

To this last reality I add the affirmation of how good it is to be part of a congregation that does not desert those who hurt or expect us to walk alone.

Thank you, Freemason Street, for reflecting God’s love in every season.

Grace and peace,

Bob Guffey