Art of Dying Art of Dying_Volume III_joomag | Page 77
When we can see
death as ordinary, as
a natural occurrence,
then we see the
extraordinary.
I've been working in the field of caregiving for over
30 years, as a volunteer for suicide and AIDS hotlines
and with the Manhattan Center for Living where I
worked with folks who were HIV infected. I’ve been
working professionally with those who are suffering,
ill, or transitioning towards death for 17 years.
Palliative care, when applying its full potential,
includes someone from a spiritual background.
More and more palliative care departments are
hiring chaplains. It depends on the funding. Most
heads of palliative services acknowledge the
presence of a chaplain or other spiritual caregiver
to be very, very important.
They see me and are like, "Well, hello.”
One has to spend, if possible, many hours with
a patient over the course of days and weeks, in
order to establish a close connection. Palliative
care clinicians have a lot to cover, whereas a
chaplain or priest has the luxury of spending more
time with patients. That's not to say that hospice
workers and nurses don't have the same empathy
and compassion. Again, it’s the luxury of time,
particularly in a hospital.
To become a chaplain requires 1,600 hours of
clinical and academic study. Part of the training is
that you don't bring your agenda. Chaplains are
meant to be interdenominational. You're there to
serve everyone. This can be a self-transforming
career path. My path was to become a Zen priest. A difference between myself and a nurse being
with a dying person is that I'm looking at the whole
person, their whole history. I can see more than an 87
year old woman who's dying. I can see her as a baby,
a little girl, a young woman. When I feel that sense of
the whole person, from birth to death, there's such
an opportunity for an opening into the person's soul,
a shared experience much greater than that of just
being present during their last days.
My Zen practice enhances my chaplain training, but
I don’t enter a room as a Zen priest. I enter without
an agenda. Folks see this big guy dressed in black,
with this big Irish face, and often think I'm a priest. Most of what is significant to these relationships is
shared in silence. You don’t try to translate it into
words. You just know it's there. And it’s different
every time. It could be through the slightest touch
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