I ran across this article which I found interesting for many reasons. It is written by Kerry Egan, a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts and the author of ?Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago.? She recalls an experience she had as a Harvard Divinity School student:
As a divinity school student, I had just started working as a student chaplain at a cancer hospital when my professor asked me about my work. I was 26 years old and still learning what a chaplain did.
?I talk to the patients,? I told him.
?You talk to patients? And tell me, what do people who are sick and dying talk to the student chaplain about?? he asked.
I had never considered the question before. ?Well,? I responded slowly, ?Mostly we talk about their families.?
?Do you talk about God?
?Umm, not usually.?
?Or their religion??
?Not so much.?
?The meaning of their lives??
?Sometimes.?
?And prayer? Do you lead them in prayer? Or ritual??
?Well,? I hesitated. ?Sometimes. But not usually, not really.?
I felt derision creeping into the professor?s voice. ?So you just visit people and talk about their families??
?Well, they talk. I mostly listen.?
?Huh.? He leaned back in his chair.
A week later, in the middle of a lecture in this professor?s packed class, he started to tell a story about a student he once met who was a chaplain intern at a hospital.
?And I asked her, ?What exactly do you do as a chaplain?? And she replied, ?Well, I talk to people about their families.?? He paused for effect. ?And that was this student?s understanding of faith! That was as deep as this person?s spiritual life went! Talking about other people?s families!?
The students laughed at the shallowness of the silly student. The professor was on a roll.
?And I thought to myself,? he continued, ?that if I was ever sick in the hospital, if I was ever dying, that the last person I would ever want to see is some Harvard Divinity School student chaplain wanting to talk to me about my family.?
My body went numb with shame. At the time I thought that maybe, if I was a better chaplain, I would know how to talk to people about big spiritual questions. Maybe if dying people met with a good, experienced chaplain they would talk about God, I thought.
Today, 13 years later, I am a hospice chaplain. I visit people who are dying ? in their homes, in hospitals, in nursing homes. And if you were to ask me the same question ? What do people who are sick and dying talk about with the chaplain? ? I, without hesitation or uncertainty, would give you the same answer. Mostly, they talk about their families: about their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters.
When I was at Yale Divinity School and worked part-time as a student minister at Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green, then as a ?bar minister? in Aspen, Colorado during the two years I lived there, playing music and volunteering at the Aspen Community Church, I discovered the same thing Egan did: Oftentimes the best thing you can do when attending to a family dealing with death is just? listen. And while the conversation will occasionally veer toward God or heaven, generally people discuss more mundane matters.
I say ?mundane.? In the context of a loved one dying, nothing is mundane. Everything is heightened in experience. Thus mundane things can be transformed into special, even sacred moments, the simplest things in life often a touchstone for the most important memories and feelings.
I bring this up because I read far too many scenes dealing with death that don?t ring true. Of course, there is latitude in how we approach death scenes depending upon story genre, tone, narrative voice and so forth. But if you are attempting to write a story that is in any way supposed to come across as realistic, it is important that you ground the writing in actual experiences, either your own if you have been touched personally by the death of someone or if not then the experiences of others such as Egan.
Research hospice. Research stories from chaplains and ministers. What you write doesn?t have to be literally true, but it has to achieve a sense of verisimilitude, it has to feel real.
For more of Egan?s article, go here.
Source: http://gointothestory.blcklst.com/2012/02/what-people-talk-about-before-they-die.html
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