A Blog About Dying Well

Most hospitals around our nation will be celebrating National Hospital Week this week. National Hospital week dates back to the 1920s when hospitals workers felt that hospitals were places of mystery and places to fear. At that time, most people were still born at home and died at home and doctors came to their home to care for patients.

Our health care system has changed enormously since then and hospital stays are much more common. In particular, many people live out their final days in a hospital, dying surrounded most often by family but also surrounded by—dare we admit engulfed by—medical equipment. The result is that dying has become less a known experience, common to all, and more an experience that is alien and mechanical.

I hope in my blog to address this subject of dying, a subject often shunned in our culture. I want to explore the ideas of how to live well so that we can die well. This is not about following Pastor Rick Warren’s ideas that this life is but a preparation for Heaven. Rather I hope to write about how  we can  build relationships and experiences in this life that will be fulfilling even as death approaches.

To introduce myself, I am a chaplain with three ministry sites. I work as an evening and weekend chaplain at one of our major trauma hospitals, and I work as an as-needed chaplain at one of our smaller, more- specialized hospitals. Finally, I work as chaplain at a shelter for homeless women. At all three places, I am blessed to be with persons and their families as they face hardship, hurt, and heartache. I am blessed to see how healing and hope and wholeness can be present even in the worst of circumstances.

I hope each week to share some of my experiences of being with persons as they face death, and I hope that you will feel free to comment on my words, and add your own experiences.  Hopefully, we can all grow and learn from this sharing.