I am currently a Palliative Care Therapist on a Palliative Medicine team. Most people have no idea what that is, so I'll explain;
Palliative Care (pronounced pal-lee-uh-tiv) is specialized medical care for people with serious illnesses. It focuses on providing patients with relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.
So every day I meet people at a touchpoint where they are in the spectrum of illness, and partner with them to help navigate the emotional land mines that serious illness amplifies. Sometimes I work directly with patients, sometimes I spend the majority of my time with their family members. But I am always working with people for whom, the stakes have never been higher and the fear of loss has never been greater.
Loss.
I meet with people at a severe moment of need, and give them space and the permission, to process their feelings about what lies ahead. The pain they endure, the things they may have to change, the home they may have to leave, the family they have to rely on, the indignities they have to bear. They are dealing with loss; over and over again. Illness can chip away at what once was whole, and often leaves people in pieces.
I've held the hands of 90-year-olds, teared up with 70-year-olds, prayed with 50-year-olds and laughed with 30 year-olds. Each of them facing loss. I have heard, and carried their stories, advocated for their needs and tried to help "fix" as much as I can before they move on to the next part of their journey. Sometimes they are returning to their own home where everything is familiar, sometimes it's a nursing home where nothing is familiar, and sometimes it's hospice, where they will stretch beyond their fragile mortality to touch the other side.
Certainly people hear what I do, and wonder how I can work with people who are dying every day and not break into a million pieces...
The truth?
I've been broken before. And I was restored. I was abundantly restored! And then, because God knows exactly how to put us back together, he gave me the gift of this job. He gave it to me, at this time in my life, when He knew I could handle it. He allows me to walk alongside people who are breaking, and be safe haven for that brokenness. Daily; this work amplifies opportunities for me to remember where I have come from and help me see where I need to go.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (The Message)
All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.
And despite the fact that I bear witness to the visceral pain of profound loss almost every day, I am not numb to it. When pain touches, (even briefly) my own life, I am silenced by the vibrant fragility of our lives and the searing reality of loss.
An old friend of mine passed away yesterday.
Suddenly, the experience of loss, previously at a safe-distance, is reaching into my life and reminding me that tomorrow has not been promised. That THIS DAY is GIVEN and we are wise to live every last second out of it. Are you living every last second out of your days? Are you humbled by the supreme gift of another day?
Umm... Yes?
Yeah, so even though I work with death every day, even though I have literally been in the room when someone transcended their humanness, I still expect tomorrow to come.
And that's the human condition. We always think we have more time! One more day, one more moment. Even people who are dying are caught off guard by the stealth way death walks in. So what has my work with death taught me? What has loss taught me?
Try to be thankful.
Try to be mindful.
Try to do better.
"Love like I'm not scared.
Give when it's not fair.
Live life for another.
Take time for a brother.
Fight for the weak ones.
Speak out for freedom
Find faith in the battle.
Stand tall, but above it all,
Fix my eyes on YOU
On YOU."
Loss.
It can sneak up on you.
Better live BIG right now.
Rest in Abundant & Heavenly Peace, Becky.
L
