Because the first anniversary of Isabella’s death is this week (Jan. 15), I wanted to talk about my unplanned reunion with Ferdinand. It happed on August 15; seven months to the day that Isabella died.

I passed a local restaurant and saw Ferdinand sitting outside…alone. I was on my way home from work and my hands were full of groceries and dry cleaning and I walked past quickly, a little terrified. When I arrived at home I dropped my things and told John that Ferdinand was eating on the corner and I had to go see him. John agreed and held off cooking our dinner until I returned.

I walked to the restaurant and knocked on the table. Ferdinand recognized me and agreed when I asked if I could sit down. There is no other way to describe our meeting than awkward. We spent intense time together in January waiting for his wife to leave this world and that was our only mutual frame of reference. Since she had died on Jan. 15 I suggested that maybe it was karma that brought us together on August 15 to check in.

Ferdinand told me about the funeral and their two sons, and support groups, and a new roommate. We had a comical moment when he said, “You’re much thinner than I remember.” I hypothesized that I was wearing turtleneck sweaters and a down coat in January.

We made small talk about the restaurant’s Monday night trout and goulash specials and then he asked the question I had been expecting. “Why didn’t you return my call?” I was honest. One of the benefits of hospice is that the primary caregiver receives 13 months of bereavement care if desired. It’s not usually the same volunteer who provides both the care giving and the bereavement services. I have been doing this work long enough to know that I am the gal you want around in a crisis, at the time of death, or in the immediate aftermath, but a different type of emotional connection is needed to help the bereaved, and I don’t do a good enough job with the people in my own family who are bereaved. I can’t practice on strangers.

Ferdinand indicated that he understood what I was saying, or perhaps he wanted to return to his New York magazine and his trout. I said that I needed to get home for dinner. We stood and hugged. As I began to walk away, Ferdinand thanked me for coming up to talk to him. “I know it took courage,” he said.

He had no idea how right he was.

I have a pet peeve regarding eulogies. It makes me absolutely livid when the person officiating defines the person by her illness, rather than by her accomplishments, or, even worse, when a person is remembered in negative terms.

This brand of eulogy was given for an aunt of mine who had breast cancer in 1976, but died in 2009 after living a long life, owning her own business, having many good friends, and contributing quite a bit of karma into the world. The eulogy was given not by a family member. It was not given by a member of the clergy. It was delivered by a good friend of the family who was a hospital administrator. Later, at the meal of consolation, he solicited gifts for his hospital, but that’s a totally different pet peeve and a different blog.

I attended a funeral late last year where the son’s entire eulogy apologized for the way his mother treated people. I couldn’t tell if this behavior was a result of the illness or a character flaw since birth. It didn’t really matter to me; I was uncomfortable either way.

I understand that eulogies are not written months in advance, although in some cases I bet they are. Often they are pasted together from a group’s shared memories, transmitted through a prism of grief. And if you have been through a long illness with the deceased, those experiences are the freshest. Try keeping a notebook and writing down interactions with your loved one that just made you smile. Here’s a wild thought. Start this now, with people you adore who aren’t sick.

And keep this important point in mind: eulogy comes from the Greek meaning good words.

When my friend Eva gave her mother’s eulogy last March, she wrote it in the form of a letter to her mother. Commenting on the values she learned from her, her mom’s love of Law & Order (made even more poignant when Eva herself became an Assistant District Attorney), and offering an overview of the people with whom her mother would reunite as well as some new friends she would make in heaven (my mom and my husband’s dad, among others)… it was the sweetest eulogy I ever heard.

It is probably too simplistic to suggest that when called upon to deliver a eulogy just assume that the deceased is listening. But I would offer this bit of advice. Ask yourself what you would want said about you at your funeral, and do the same for the person who has gone before you.

One of the best reasons to love New York City is the opportunity to invent relationships with strangers. Take your local coffee cart guy. You see each other five days a week, and he knows you as “small decaf regular and a plain croissant.” When you don’t show up for a few days he asks if you’re feeling better. Some days it feels as if his is the only attention you get. This economic relationship is strong and infinite.

Then there are the people you meet on the subway, who are also interested in creating an economic relationship with you, only this one is more short-term. When I first moved to New York, like all newbies, I fell for every subway drama or display and after a few months I became more selective with my donations or gave out granola bars.

Recently, on my way home from work (Brooklyn-bound R train from Whitehall) I had an encounter that had a profound effect on me. A youngish African-American man stood in the middle of the car. His body language was despondent. His voice, plaintive. He announced that he had just gotten out of prison and that his mother had recently passed away. He said that she told him to keep himself together, “don’t end up back in prison.”

And so he was asking for help. He was grieving in front of strangers because he had nowhere else to turn. Three world-weary New Yorkers gave him money. A woman in her 50s, a woman in her 40s, and a young man with a beard, mustache, and headphones. When he approached me, I looked him in the eye and told him, “May your mother’s memory be a blessing,” and I handed him all the money in my pocket. He thanked me.

I have ridden the subway long enough to know when I’m being played. But I have also been around enough grief to recognize when it is so palpable that strangers can feel it. In this season of giving thanks, think of the people in your life who will rescue you when you are lost in a sea of sadness, and make sure to tell them thank you.

VNSNY Hospice provides bereavement services for families of patients enrolled in hospice. If you are not part of the hospice family, you can contact 1-800-Lifenet, which provides 24-hour-telephone crisis support, and can make referrals to more than 4,000 community resources.

^{Photo by WalknBoston through Creative Commons.}

I don’t know when exactly my tears started to flow. I don’t know if it was because I adore my siblings and the thought of losing them fills me with abject terror, or because Ms. Simpson, keeping vigil with her brother and sister-in-law, understood the preciousness of each passing moment, and the beauty of her brother’s spirit. Or because my first vigil patient, Brian, died two years ago today and I’m feeling a little weepy.

Given her skill as a writer, it is no wonder that Ms. Simpson crafts each sentence with loving care. In true journalistic fashion, she shows us…she doesn’t just tell us. She is funny and warm and honest.

Please read the eulogy for yourself, and appreciate learning about a man who kept this very special part of himself for those he loved the most.

What I found most interesting, however, were his views of death, which he shared with Stanford graduates in 2005, after his original diagnosis. Now when he spoke to the students and their parents, he had undergone surgery and had a very bright future, bright even for Steve Jobs. His perspective on death was enlightening, a view that could only come from someone who came “this close” to the end of his life, yet his view of death was shaped by a quote he read when he was 17 years old: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.”

He went on to say, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Read the full speech here.

The entire speech is straight forward, honest, and I hope that his audience, having been in the presence of a man humbled by illness more than anything else, took his words to heart. Those graduates are still not yet 30, they have their entire lives to understand the meaning of his words.

Being able to recognize the moments that define what it means to be alive is a gift to be cherished. It is our responsibility to seek out those moments each and everyday, not just when our days are numbered.

May Steve’s memory be a blessing.

What I have not discussed is the connection between September 11 and my volunteer work. I watched all of the events of that morning from my office on the 25^th floor of a building six blocks south of where the Twin Towers stood; my office faced north. As I walked home over the Brooklyn Bridge with my husband, I was traumatized and non-verbal. I could not get undressed nor take a shower because I felt I would be washing the remains of human beings down my drain.

It took me a few weeks to realize how fortunate I was and knowing that made me crave opportunities to volunteer. I spent my birthday that year volunteering for Safe Horizons calculating receipts for displaced residents needing reimbursements. I stood at Point Thank You on a freezing cold night yelling and clapping at every truck that drove down the West Side Highway. I purchased socks, Power Bars, and Red Bull for rescue workers because I was told that’s what was needed. And like almost every other Brooklynite, I baked dozens and dozens and dozens of chocolate chip cookies to deliver to local fire houses.

These one-off activities weren’t doing it for me. I needed to commit to an activity with my heart and soul, and one that could quiet the guilt I felt for making it home that day. It took a few years to figure out that VNSNY Hospice was the place to do that very thing.

As it is for so many others at this time of year, this season is very difficult for me. Historically I am irritable, short-tempered, depressed, anxious, all while consuming copious amounts of chocolate and counting down the days until September 11 is over.

Yet this year feels different. Maybe I have been so busy thinking about “Hazel’s” passing on August 20, the earthquake, and the hurricane which required the staff to evacuate the Museum, that I haven’t had time to dwell on it. And that is okay. Because my own legacy from September 11 is the work I have done for Hospice. The people who were murdered on September 11 were not surrounded by loved ones, or cared for by strangers who became family. In my own small way, escorting the souls of strangers on the path to the next journey is my way of honoring the souls of the men, women, and children who died alone that day.

Be well.

My hospice patient, Hazel (not her real name).

In addition to my vigil work, I have a regular patient whom I have seen every Friday for the past three and a half years. Patients typically are enrolled in hospice for 180 days (incidentally that’s also the title of an excellent and powerful one-woman show by Taren Sterry, about her own hospice work), because that is the expectation of how long the patient has to live. Of course there are times when patients are recertified for another 180 days. Sometimes patients are discharged because they are stable, there is no decline, and their prognosis improves. Patients can go back on hospice if their situation changes. Hazel has experienced all of these scenarios and more, and I’ve been with her for all of it.

For most of our 3.5 years, I have been opening her mail, paying bills, filing, writing letters and thank you notes, and serving as her social secretary. One day two years ago, we were going through old papers and we ran across a letter from the Dean of the College of New Rochelle congratulating Hazel on making the Dean’s List. She got her bachelor’s degree at the same time I was getting mine, except that she was 77. She is a pretty stubborn dame with a lot of opinions, but if you get on her good side, she is sweet as can be. When my father-in-law died last summer, she wanted to know how my mother-in-law was doing, and asks after her often, and when I told her about my recent promotion, she wanted to hear all about the view of from my new office.

In February, Hazel fell, and she began to decline. When I was leaving to go on a vacation in April we had a difficult and heartfelt goodbye because I really didn’t think I would see her again. But, per Hazel’s modus operandi, she rallied, and seemed much better when I returned from France. She didn’t want to talk about herself; she just wanted to hear about my trip. Her advice to me was to take more trips.

A wonderful woman who is loving, generous, wise, and special cares for Hazel. I wish I could clone her. I want her to go to nursing school and then go on to teach nurses, although I am not sure her level of caring can be taught. It is really an art. She had a 101^st birthday party for Hazel on Thursday. I attended as well as Hazel’s other volunteer, Ann. We sang to Hazel, had cake, and the three of us talked in the living room about what will happen when Hazel dies; Hazel slept the whole time.

Hazel is transitioning from living to dying, and my work with her is no longer administrative and jovial. I hold her hand to comfort her while she sleeps and give her sips of water and watch her breathe. I look at my work piling up on her desk knowing I can’t get to it because she does not want me to break the connection between my energy and hers. I cover her with blankets because she is cold, even though it is 100 degrees.

And I begin to understand that I have made my own transition. I am no longer a hospice volunteer sitting with her patient. I am a woman watching her friend die.

In today’s New York Times, there is a wonderful article about a 38-year-old man who suffered a brain hemorrhage and whose wife agreed to donate his organs. In total, EIGHT people were given hope because of Julio and Mirtala Garcia’s selflessness. Mrs. Garcia met with five of the recipients last week and the reporter, Denise Grady, was there.

The article is beautiful not just for its writing and the way it combines medical information with personal and specific detail, but because we get a sense of the love Mirtala had for Julio. “What would he have wanted?” she was asked. “He would have wanted to help people,” was her response.

The article places in stark language the importance of organ donation and the way in which humans become interconnected by the experience. It conveys this message in a way that no well-intentioned blog possibly could.

Please read the whole story and discuss it with the people you love. After you hug and kiss them for no apparent reason, of course.

This topic fascinates me. I have advised friends and colleagues on this subject, but in the case of Prince William, when every person on the planet feels a connection to your mother, how do you do it with honor, respect, and most importantly, in a way that has meaning for you?

So I did a little research, and I am pleased to report that there were several ways that Diana was being remembered. This list can be modified to assist commoners in their planning, but if you have access to a 1902 State Landau open-top carriage, go for it.

William gave his mother’s engagement ring to his beloved. I applaud William’s lack of superstition and his desire to have his mom’s memory be a day-to-day presence in their lives.

William’s aunt, Diana’s big sis, planned to wear the same earrings Diana wore at her own wedding. According to Time magazine, these baubles were pear shaped diamonds surrounded by 50 smaller diamonds. They were flown in for the occasion because they are part of the traveling exhibition “Diana: A Celebration” currently on display at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri.

The newlyweds, as mentioned, left Westminster Abbey in the same carriage that Princess Diana and Prince Charles used as their slow-moving get-away vehicle.

These are physical reminders of Diana, but what about elements that reflect her inner-life, her charitable heart and kind soul? Guests from the charities she valued were invited, close friends like Elton John attended, and what I find most poignant, is that the reverend who christened William and presided over Diana’s funeral gave the wedding address.

Music from Diana and Charles’ wedding was played, as was a hymn that was played at Diana’s funeral. An article from Agence France-Press informs us that it is a Welsh national hymn and is often sung at rugby internationals.

When I got married, my mother had already been dead seven years. We used a ring of hers as my engagement ring, because like William, I wanted my mother to be part of the experience. Our wedding ceremony lasted just over four minutes, so there was no music or prayer or time to really talk about Charlotte. Yet, she was present in the most unbelievable way.

My parents had been divorced when I was very young, and my dad remarried in 1972, so they had not been a part of each other’s lives other than a phone call now and then, for decades. It was not an amicable dissolution, but it must have been the right thing because my dad and step-mom have been happily married nearly 40 years. The morning of my nuptials, when my dad picked me up after getting my bridal up-do, I noticed he was wearing cufflinks. In all of my 28 years I had never known Dad to wear French cuffs, but here they were. I said, “Nice cufflinks.” He responded after a minute, “Your mother gave them to me.” I was kind of speechless. He kept something my mother gave him? He wore them today for me? We drove home in silence the rest of the way, with me a little calmer than before.

Photo by Julio (Flickr: DSC_0141) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I really enjoy speaking to new classes of volunteers because I want to convey to them how special they are for choosing this kind of volunteerism, and because I feel that hospice work is a kind of calling. This past Sunday, I shared my experiences along with Alison, a fellow volunteer, and Gail, a former volunteer and current member of theVNSNY Hospice. I marveled that although the three of us have different life experiences we also have several commonalities:

1)    Being with a loved one while he/she died has made a lasting impact on us.

2)    We have all developed intimate connections with patients, understanding that our role in their lives is to bear witness to their experiences.

Alison summed up the volunteer/patient experience beautifully by referring to it as a “spiritual practice.” When she said that, I had a true moment of clarity.

I have always acknowledged that when I leave my office on Friday afternoons and visit my patient before starting my own weekend, it is the perfect break between the professional and the personal. And what is so special about it is that the time we spend with our patients is entirely about them. It is sacred time. There is no room to think about the sarcasm-laced, end-of-week e-mail that drove you from the office in a huff or the 30 pages of editing that await you upon your return. These 60 or 90 minutes are all about making our patients comfortable, allowing them to feel what they feel and reassuring them that what they are feeling is okay, even if they can’t admit it to anyone but you. While there is no prayer per se, there is time to contemplate life on earth, what may come after, and prepare a total stranger for that journey. It is the time to visualize light and to help our patients let go of what saddens, angers and confounds them.

When I leave my patient each Friday evening to meet my husband for dinner, I feel lighter and my spirit is lifted. I feel like I have been given a precious gift. It is as close to a spiritual practice as I get, and I am so grateful to Alison for helping me identify it for what it is.

Namaste.