One of the most rewarding aspects of being a hospice volunteer is the commitment that VNSNY makes to our continuing education. We all want to improve our skills and be better practitioners, even if we are just practicing. We want to be ready, when the time comes, for anything.

For three consecutive Tuesdays I am participating in vigil training, which means I am learning how to be present when someone is actively dying. Hospice has a philosophy that no one should die alone, and when patients come to us who don’t have friends or family, the e-mails go out asking who can spend a few hours with this patient. It is the most profound work I can think of for a hospice volunteer, for any human being really.

Our homework assignment for this week was daunting. Not in a voluminous “read 300 pages of sociology” sort of way, more in a “physically remove your heart and leave it in a Macy’s window display” kind of way. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but our homework was to complete a personal loss inventory: the earliest death you remember, most difficult death, most recent death, and the bonus question: whose death do you fear the most?

The people who are in this training come from all walks of life, faith backgrounds, ages, and professions. There are more than 20 of us, all in different stages of our volunteer or professional experience. Our common bond is a calling to help our fellow human beings in their time of need. I will say for some it is a common bond, for others it is an acknowledgment that having never confronted death is scarier than learning how to deal with it.

At the first training on July 27 we introduced ourselves and why we were there, but other than a little chatting over dinner, we didn’t really know each other. This was even more evident this week when almost everyone said sheepishly, “Um, tell me your name again.” So I assumed that our homework discussion would be a bonding exercise for the class as a whole where various people would offer that the death of a grandmother was the first death they remembered. For how many of us was that the first death, you know, that kind of thing.

Nope. We counted off into pairs and discussed our responses with one classmate, one acquaintance whose name we didn’t even remember.  Now I was quite fortunate because my homework partner is studying at the Zen Center for Contemplative Care and it is clear that “being present” is what he does. We immediately put each other at ease and we were able to talk about this unbelievably difficult personal history and how we felt writing out the assignment, like if you write down the name of the person whose death you fear the most do you start a chain of events just too upsetting to imagine.

The purpose of this exercise, it was revealed, was to show us that we need to be prepared to have these conversations with complete strangers. We are entering their lives as they are about to encounter a profound loss. Now, we need to be restrained about what we reveal about ourselves, but we need to be aware that all losses that one experiences, and the emotions that accompany them are sort of waiting in the wings as our spirits get ready to surrender a loved one.

Our session concluded with a meditation from another Zen Contemplative Center fellow. This mediation from our “heart center” unleashed such deep emotion in me that I was caught off guard by my response. This is what I believe keeping vigil over the dying is about: your mind, body, and soul are open to this profound experience and just being present with an open heart allows you and your patient to be at peace.

Be well.