Unending images

At times working in a community service, visiting clients in their own home things can be disturbing. They have been burnt into my mind it seems forever.

In Melbourne probably more than ten years ago I was visiting a palliative client, it was the initial assessment. At the end of the of the interview I was ushered into a bed room: they obviously wanted to show me something. It was a time warp to the seventies.

It's was a teenage girls bed room left exactly as she left it, the day she had died. It had the wallpaper, pictures of the band "Sherbert". Everything screamed seventies. While the rest of the house had moved on, lived in, renovated. This room was a shrine.

I don't know what had happened to this girl, how she died. It seemed obvious that the parents had never gotten over her death. Grief continued to be pushed to the surface in this room.

 

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God has no favourites, but maybe we can change the odds

I have often heard lamented by a relative of how the person who has the life threatening illness lived a good life. Be it through the absence of drugs, healthy lifestyle, the goodness be it within a family or community which they contributed. To be honest it disturbes me; I often feel the distress.

It is obvious that God does not have favourites. That there is a ramdomness of whom God takes before their time. He does not have favourites even those who regularly acknowledge and worship Him no matter how ferverent. I'm often reminded of Forest Gump's line "life is like a box of chocolates", there is a randomness in death; which at times I think we can change the odds.

It would appear that lifestyle can change the odds. Moderation with alcohol, eating healthily, positive relationships within and outside the family. I would also write a centeredness which is often found in Church or wherever people slow down and have time to contemplate. The thing though even with these positives in a persons life it dosn't guarente anything. It just lowers the odds.

There is a quote going around at the moment by a Sioux Indian Vine Deloria::

"Religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell

Spirituality is for those who have already been there"

I like it; there is an idea for me that Heaven has already been touched, it has been experienced. That there is no more fear to be had through death. Its not about somthing unknown on the other side. It is somthing about life, beauty, joy.....

This I would think is the biggest way in which we can change the odds.

 

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The last goodbye

Often when a person is at the last stage of their disease and dying they are in an altered state of consciousness. Most people understand consciousness as either awake or asleep. Yet there are ranges of consciousness that most people don't give much thought to. We can often be in an altered state of consciousness when we are waking in the morning or just when we are going to sleep. These are often times when our dreams are most vivid. A time when we are neither awake or asleep, yet a place where activity continues.
During my time as a palliative care nurse I've often been with people who are in these altered states. Most palliative care nurses who have worked in the field long enough would agree, that helping a loved one move from this life often involves 'giving permission' to die and saying goodbye. Usually this scenario is where a person is in an altered state of consciousness. This unconscious state could be for hours or days. What frequently happens is that the person who has been given 'permission' dies within hours.
My understanding of this behaviour is that a person is in an altered state of consciousness. They are still able to process information around them as well as internally. It is in my opinion a sacred space. A place where healing can still occur. (not cure) I don't think it is a co-incidence that frequently people in these states will still be alive until a loved one is next to their bedside, or they die at a particular time or wait until Christmas.
Saying good bye it is often the hardest words ever said. Yet it is often the most freeing for the person experiencing eminent death.
Most my understanding of this topic I've experienced during my work in palliative care, yet there are number resource if one wishes to explore the topic more fully.
::One book which I would recommend is by Australian Dr Michael Barbato a Palliative care physician, Reflections of a setting sun.