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“Light in the Shadows”: Meditations While Living with a Life-Threatening Illness

"As Buddha said: "What you are is what you have been, what you will be is what you do now." Another teacher went further: "If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.""
-- Sogyal Rinpoche

    On my first and last visit into Jane's home, I was greeted in the living room by her husband and a woman who was a close family friend. Jane was within days of dying and was in the bedroom. The husband and friend filled me in on the situation before we moved to the bedside. I stood on one side of the bed and Jane's husband knelt at the other side, taking her hand. The friend stood behind him. Jane was so weak I could hardly hear her voice. At one point she looked to her husband and said, "I love you." I asked if they would like to have a prayer, and we held hands making a circle including this dying woman. After I ended my prayer the husband asked if we could say the "Lord's Prayer" and I said yes. We concluded the prayer and I left the room.

I was hardly at the bedside five minutes, ten at the most. I could offer only the bare minimum to this failing patient and her loving family. I walked into the living room to wait and have a few last words with the family when this friend emerged from the bedroom. She came up to me, threw her arms around me and said, "You are so wonderful. That was just what we needed. You have helped so much." My first thought was, "Boy, is this job easy." And my very next thought was, "What a privilege to be here at such an important moment in the life of this family. I am so fortunate to be able to learn so many of life's lessons by walking with others through these difficult times."

People say to me, Oh. You work for hospice. That must be depressing. . . . Hospice workers are so special." Whether it's at a party, or in the grocery checkout line, or with a family member at the bedside, this is often the comment I get when someone discovers I am a hospice chaplain.

I've got some news for all who believe this myth. First, we are not so special. I feel I am not different from any other human being. Perhaps it is this realization that I am not different, and that one day I will be in that bed looking up at another hospice chaplain, that has helped me do this work.

The other piece of news is that this work is only sometimes depressing. My life is so much richer because of time spent with those who have a life-threatening illness and their families. Out of the shadows of the individual tragedies I witness comes a great light. Sickness and death are always sad. And surely these patients and families would have wished things to be different. But it is out of sufferings that we can learn much about living.

What have I learned and what can I share with others?

I have learned to live my life with so much more gratitude, like Mary, who said being blind was wonderful.

I have learned from the man who felt guilty when his son died because he had so much more to tell him. What I learned is not to let a day go by when I haven't said all I want to say to my family and friends.

I have learned that even in the darkest hour a sense of humor can bring light, like the man who had such an unusual illness that there were only eight known cases like his. When I asked him how he felt to have such a rare disease, through a big grin he said, "Special!" He died on Christmas Day.

I have learned that you can let go of someone you love dearly, like the fifteen-year-old girl whose mother was dying of cancer. She had already been abandoned by her father but was able to tell her mother, "I am going to be okay. I am going to have a good life. You can go now." The mother who had fought for months to hold on for her children died a few hours later.

I have learned I have a choice in how I respond to any set of circumstances like the forty-two-year-old MS patient who had no sense of bitterness over the unfairness of being cut down before his time.

I have learned that I must practice "letting go" and living peacefully my whole life if I hope to come to the end of my days like my Aunt Nell, who died gently because she lived gently.

I have learned to sense the presence of God in the most difficult circumstances, like the woman dying in the concentration camp hearing the words, "I am here. I am life-eternal life."

I have learned that one day everything will be taken away from me-my health, my home, my family, my career, my possessions-so today I must nurture the things that will last. I want to give attention daily to my inward spiritual life and to the love I share with others. Not wanting to be caught off-guard, I often ask myself, "Is today the day?"

I have learned that although I know it will be a sad day, I can accept my own death as being right, like my aunt, who said, "It's my time."