What the Dying Want You to Know About Life

It was a rainy December day when I knocked on Melissa and Bradley's* door for the first time. I was pregnant, cold, wet and without an umbrella; it rarely rains here. Melissa answered the door, quiet, sullen, with dark bags under her eyes, and probably (definitely) anemic. She devoted all of her time to taking care of Bradley, at her expense. Since his ALS diagnosis, Bradley had become steadily weaker, less capable. Refusing a voice-assistive device, he had been reduced to grunts and nods, a barely effective means of communication. He had been robbed of ability to stand, walk or to use his limbs at all. Melissa embraced me in the doorway, the desperate grip of someone who had lost hope. She had never seen me. No matter. Hospice does that to people. It makes strangers family. Melissa took my saturated sweater, saying, "I don't see your wings, but I know they are there. You are surely an angel." She invited me in, offered me a cookie and showed me a seat. That day stands out, maybe because Bradley and Melissa are so much like me and my husband. Maybe because I saw my own sullen face in hers. Maybe because of the profound fear that I felt; the fear of losing someone you love so deeply, so deeply that the world couldn't possibly continue to move around the sun without them. When you tell people you're a hospice nurse, the default comment is always, "Oh I could never do that. I would cry all the time." In truth, those who work in hospice do cry, not every day, but certainl...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news