Hospice Hospitality

Have you ever seen or heard a word and gathered meaning from it based on the context only to find out later that your interpretation of the word was wrong? This happened to me with the word ‘hospice’. For some reason, I believed that a hospice was a place where people who could afford it, go to rest and recuperate from sickness. The word conjured up for me, the image of a quiet cottage by the sea where the occupant was allowed to heal and get better in peace and solitude. I found out long after that it really was care or a care facility that provided comfort to a terminally ill patient until death which was usually in six months or less. My definition of hospice was a much better one.

Perhaps it does provide rest and recuperation, not for the body but for the soul. Perhaps it is a time when the divine spark us flickers but is not put out. The soul uses the opportunity to thank the body for its service and prepares to return to the Universal Consciousness from whence it came. I think it is an exciting time, not for the family that has to go through the pain of losing a loved one nor for the ego-mind that soon realizes that its job is near complete but for the soul that is finally allowed to release the trappings of this low-energy physical body. The body, I think is ambivalent; it came to do a job, it did it to the best of its ability and is now moving on to be part of the earth and continue its role in the cycle of life.

When we look at it dispassionately, death is like butchering a pig, the only thing that is lost is its squeal.

The squeal here is the ego-mind and for many of us, it did quite a bit of squealing in its time. It squealed when it created the fear in us; it squealed when it fostered intolerance and hatred; it squealed when it demanded that we lead lives that gave into a lesser version of our best selves; it squealed when it encouraged our lack mentality; It squealed all the way to the slaughterhouse…..OK stick a pin!

As I re-read what I had written, I was shocked to see that I wrote about the process of dying as being exciting for the soul and comparing something as traumatic as death to a pig and its lost squeal. I figure that some may view it as quite insensitive, so I sent the draft to a friend of mine, the one that I have named the Advisor in previous blog posts, and asked for comments.

She was quite disturbed, having recently lost someone in hospice care and still feeling the pain of the loss. She could not understand why I would use the word ‘exciting’ to describe the dying process and asked about how could the soul be ready to leave, abandoning the vessel that made it a being?

My response was simply that the reference to an ‘exciting time’ was for the soul as it prepares to exit the trappings of a physical body, no longer needing to stay in something that had already served its purpose, somewhat like a beautiful butterfly exiting the tough skin of the pupa.

Her comment was, “that’s the reality I guess but it’s a tough pill to swallow.”

Not so much, they come coated now.



See a previous blog post on a similar topic: fineartmerica.com/blogs/lets-talk-about-death.html