On death and dying

perhaps in hospitals there is a protocol or a procedure for declaring death...like whose call is it to make and how it is to be done. In the church there isn't such a process to fall back on. despite our familiarity with things funeral and memorial we don't have much of a grip on death when it comes to a congregation. at best we ask the patient to make the call themselves - and how can they....

so i have been the palliative care nurse these last thirteen months. and today we declared death with prayer around the bedside. as befits a good long expected death there was a rally at the end a doubling of numbers for the final moments. and together we performed the last rites - partook of unction. walked away from the corpse.

and like at funerals it mattered very little what i said, it mattered what they said. my anger of the last months has dissipated, so this morning was all about making the space, letting the words and tears of the people be the eulogy. and like all good funerals the truth comes out "we have been such a wonderful little clique". truth will out even in death. and they stood around the building touching objects that meant something, every single one of them finding words, it was fitting. and the priest choked over their names in the distribution - it mattered so much that they heard their names "the body of Christ broken for you".

and later this week will come the wrangling over the will and the property but for now we acknowledged that life had finally slipped from this place; the life in a place is more than just the remaining two awaiting a funeral service; and if not for them then for me the recognition that it had been comatose for some time. and that in palliative care we ease the transition to somewhere else we never save a life. we enable people to die with as much dignity as possible, we are the leaders who minimise their pain, we are the ones who brush back the hair from the forehead and wipe away the tears that sneak out crepey lids, we make it a place so others may come and enjoy the final hours, we are the ones who get close to the patients and call them by name, we are the ones who sign the paper that says: "this life is no more".

and there is not training enough in the world for this, only the steady small voice of intuition, run the race with perseverance towards the goal for despite appearances you are surrounded by a cloud.