Interpretations

[Starman]

I have had people ask me how can you work with people who are dying? I find it brings tremendous spiritual and emotional growth to me, and I realize that it is not for everyone or anyone. But someone has to do this kind of work and I consider it to be a privilege to be with a person as they leave this Earth.

The difference between hospital and hospice is that generally hospital is there to cure people, save their lives, etc., and hospice is not there to save a person’s life, rather it’s work is to do pain management, make a patient comfortable, and let them die with dignity.

If a person in hospital has a heart attack the staff does CPR and tries to save that person’s life, if a patient in a hospice has a heart attack no CPR is done, you just let the person die. During the pandemic lots of hospital nurses and doctors became upset because so many people were dying under their care; this is normal in a hospice.

The word hospice comes from the word hospitality, and while hospitality centers for the dying have been around for many centuries, the modern day hospice movement started in London, England back in 1967. Hospice strives to help people understand death as a natural experience but it does not impose any spiritual values on its residents/patients.

I am learning so much from talking to people who are approaching the death of their physical human body. They are giving me much more than I am giving them. It is interesting that most people who are terminally ill, even if they were an atheist their whole life, become interested in the concept of a higher power or God.

[Native spirit]

Helping someone on their final journey is very Satisfying.
Every little act of kindness, you can show someone means more to them
Than people realise



Namaste

[Starman]

Not everyone dies the same way, and I am working with terminally ill patients at a hospice, but a person may die suddenly from a fatal accident, suicide, or homicide. Lots of people who are terminally ill do have time to say goodbye to loved ones, unlike those who die suddenly.

Some who are terminally ill are non-responsive, they are in a coma, have dementia, Alzheimer’s, etc., and are unable, or incapable, of saying goodbye to loved ones. Frequently the loved ones’ are grieving and not accepting of their relatives death more than the person who is dying.

We are all terminal; no body, and I emphasize “BODY,” gets out of this earthly existence alive. The body falls apart because the life in it withdraws. I view old age as the body preparing the life within it, which is us in my opinion, for ascension beyond physical existence.

Most people have anxiety about dying but when death is immanent calmness usually takes over. The transition which we call death is a transition of energy where we move from a solid feeling and presence to a very fine and airy whisper-like feeling of existence. Being with a person when they die I can feel and sometimes even glimpse them leaving.

[Bluto]

Starman, I've listened to a fair number of stories from hospice workers on Youtube. One which always struck me was a woman who described one particular patient that died in front of her. She said at the moment of death, a golden light filled the room, something left the body and floated upward, and then the golden light disappeared and the room returned to normal.

My question is, have you witnessed anything like this?

Hospices and hospice work absolutely fascinates me, and I've thought often of changing career and going into it.

[Starman]

Bluto, definitely, yes I have experienced that. The field of thanatology is the study of death and dying; a thanatologist studies death from multiple perspectives, medical, physical, psychological, spiritual, ethical, etc.

I have been an unofficial thanatologist since my teenage years and have witnessed a lot of death and dying. As a U.S. Army combat medic during the Vietnam War, after the military as an ambulance paramedic, and then as a nurse, later as a medical social worker. Individual death as well as death on a large scale.

Me now working in a hospice is a new chapter in my life; as Native Spirit pointed out to me in another thread, I feel like I am in training for something yet to come. It is confronting work but most who do it, do it out of love and to deepen their own cup about the transition which we call death.

Just before a person dies a lot of energy surrounds them, lots of hospital and hospice workers can sense, feel, or even see that abundance of energy around the dying person just before they die. Some family members may also see it. Even if a person is in a coma there is a lot of motionless energetic activity in their eyes.

Those dying people who are awake often speak of seeing angels or loved ones who have passed just before they die. This is true of those who die suddenly as well as those who linger before dying. Even atheists who I have worked with, at the time of death, many will say they feel and see the loving presence of beings surrounding them.

The transfer of energy from the physical body to a non-physical state is visible; the experience is beyond words and to put words on it reduces its majestic continence in the observers perspective. The most impact experience for me is to witness a child or baby die; most do not suffer, its just the impact on the observer which is so powerful.

I have also witnessed people who were pronounced dead that were in the morgue and they woke up and was very much alive, telling fantastical stories about their death experience, Their body was cold, with no heartbeat, and then their heart restated. Many stories which I have been blessed to witness. There is a lot more to it than we can see on the surface.