Category: Philosophy of Dying

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Would you help your good friend die?

“Paddleton” is a road movie with a heavy destination

This Ray Romano and Mark Duplass drama, currently on Netflix, explores how to help someone have a dignified death

By Mary Elizabeth Williams

I don’t know what your definition of a true friend is, but mine would definitely include “willing to help me die.”

The Netflix feature “Paddleton” is a laconic road movie about the relationship between the terminally ill Michael (Mark Duplass) and Andy (a restrained, terrific Ray Romano), his upstairs neighbor and best friend. Not much happens. Except life and death. Michael has the good fortune to have metastatic cancer in California, which means he can exercise the state’s right to die option. “I don’t want to do it alone, and I was hoping,” he tells Andy as they casually nibble cashews one afternoon. “You would help me out.”

The concept of how to have a decent death has provided plenty of fictional inspiration over the years. Sixteen years ago, Ryan Murphy’s “Nip/Tuck” did a haunting arc about a woman with late stage breast cancer enlisting her lover, a doctor, to assist her in making a peaceful exit. The Oscar-winning 2012 “Amour” similarly explored assisted death as an act of love. And just two years ago, “Grace and Frankie” introduced Babe, a free-spirited pal of the girls who asks for help planning a blow-out farewell party — and a glitch-free ending for her life. Estelle Parsons was lauded for her guest role, but not everyone was a fan. One ethics blog subtly described the episode as “Grace and Frankie kill their friend.”

California’s End of Life Option Act came about in no small part thanks to the legacy of Brittany Maynard, a 29 year-old Anaheim woman who spent her final months advocating to die with as much agency as possible before her brain cancer took over. She died in Oregon in 2015, surrounded by family and loved ones but far from home, because she needed to be in a state that would provide the appropriate environment. Physician assisted death is currently legal in seven states and the District of Columbia, though it continues to face numerous legal challenges.

But “Paddleton” isn’t a right to die movie. There is no courtroom battle to be fought, nor any secretive pact to be made. When Andy initially goes through the routine dance of assuring Michael that he can’t give up because “miracles happen,” Michael counters, “They already gave me the prescription.” Andy grapples with his assigned role a moment, then stoically tells him, “OK.”

The men take a leisurely six-hour drive to one of the few pharmacies in the state that will fill the prescription. They bicker and drink and have loose, random and often very funny conversations. They return home and face the increasingly imminent fact that one of them will not be there much longer.

“Paddleton” (named for one of the men’s made-up games) was co-written and co-stars Mark Duplass, so it comes as no surprise it has a certain mumblecore je ne sais quoi. Scenes stretch out almost aimlessly. The repetitive routines of two schlubby, not very dynamic individuals play out in real time. There are no noble speeches. Yet within the film is a resonant meditation on the uniquely bewildering experience of imminent grief. “I’m the dying guy!” Michael yells to Andy at one point late in the story. “I’m the other guy!” Andy retorts, helplessly, heartbroken.

I’ve spent a lot of time the last several years being the other guy. I’ve sat with friends shriveling in their hospital beds. I’ve attended family funerals other relatives wouldn’t. I watched “Paddleton” a few hours before learning of the sudden death of one of my daughter’s oldest friends. And all I’ve ever really learned from all of it is that whether you’re prepared for it or not, the loss of someone you love will hit you like a baseball bat, and keep hitting you for longer than you ever thought possible.

The men in “Paddleton” are overgrown kids who like puzzles and pizza. Yet there are few tasks in life that demand as much delicacy and grit as facing death, and that task they manage with exemplary skill. As they sit together on Michael’s floor, preparing a final cocktail, Andy deadpans, “I don’t even know if you had to buy this particular pill. A hundred of anything would . . . you know.” He is sincere and reassuring and not somber. And when he later goes alone into the kitchen to mix the drink, Andy adeptly performs the chore, pausing only briefly to rip off a paper towel to dab his eyes.

I aspire to die someday with dignity, though I’m not currently making a fantastic show of living with it. Neither are any of the characters of “Paddleton.” They are — even the peripheral ones — awkward and strange and pretty weird. Maybe most of us are. And as much as we deserve a death with dignity, we long for one with empathy, shared with a friend who’ll hold our hand as we leave, and miss us when we’re gone.

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Shaina Garfield redesigns death with eco-friendly macramé coffin

LEAVES from Shaina Garfield on Vimeo.

By kieron marchese 

soon after shaina garfield realised her vision for an eco-friendly coffin, she noticed that what she had actually made was a coffin for herself. after being diagnosed with chronic lyme disease four years ago, the prospect of death caused a preoccupation that would eventually inspire her work as an industrial designer. as she tackled the prospect of dying, she discovered an interesting contradiction between something that essentially brings people closer to earth, and the harmful impact death practices have on the planet. after a closer look, traditional burials, embalming and cremation, all involved the pollution of nasty chemicals and toxins.

shaina garfield spoke at design indaba 2019, a three-day conference bringing together the world’s leading creatives to share their work

speaking at design indaba 2019 shaina notes that we’ve become so far removed from nature as a result of human exceptionalism – the belief that humans are the most important entities in the universe. so she came up with ‘LEAVES’, a textile coffin built from sustainable materials, that hopes to bring us closer to the planet that we live on.

LEAVES is a textile coffin built from sustainable materials

composed of a netting that wraps around the deceased, LEAVES works to make the burial process a much greener ritual. the design uses rope which has been treated with a dye and embedded with spores, encouraging fungus growth that speeds up decomposition and eats any toxins in the body. a tree is then planted on the burial site, making the most of this nutrient rich soil. instead of cemeteries, shaina imagines luscious areas where nature is representative of the greater purpose our bodies can have.

as much as it lessons the impact humans make on the planet, LEAVES also promotes positive discussions around death. drawing from funeral practices around the world, shaina considered ways in which her designs could help to support people with their grief. she imagines those mourning the death of someone coming together to tie the knots necessary to make the coffin, a meditative experience that intends to help with emotional healing.

those mourning the death of someone can come together to tie the knots necessary to make the coffin

shaina describes herself as an ‘advocate celebrating people and the earth‘, and it’s this relationship that forms the basis of her work. in a powerful description she exposes the reality that at death we are actively disconnected from nature. we choose at all costs to ‘keep ourselves in a domestic dream‘ and in the process, our consideration for the planet is nil. the natural resources it takes to make coffins, the toxins that are emitted into the air during cremation, and the chemicals seeping out of graveyards because of embalming, are all cause to believe that our attitudes towards death and the planet we live on are wrong.

the design uses rope which has been treated with a dye and embedded with spores
fungus growth that speeds up decomposition and eats any toxins in the body
shaina describes herself as an ‘advocate celebrating people and the earth‘
shaina imagines luscious areas where nature is representative of the greater purpose our bodies can have.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Making dying meaningful with an end of life doula

By Julie McClure

My dad died nine years ago after he suffered a long, debilitating illness. It was an outcome we knew was inevitable when he was diagnosed 10 years prior, but that didn’t make it any less difficult to see him slowly lose all of the functions that are necessary for one to live a fruitful life. At the end, I spend two weeks at his bedside, in his home, alongside my family, and there were times where — despite the visits from the wonderful and dedicated hospice nurses, and despite knowing this was ahead of us — the emotional toll we experienced as we honored his directive to finish his life at home without invasive life saving measures was overwhelming.

I know I’m not alone here. That every day, people are dealing with the overwhelming feelings and decisions that accompany the death of a loved one. It’s something we will all experience at some point in our lives, yet it’s a topic we’d rather avoid, that we’d rather not think about or deal with until we absolutely have to.

A couple of months ago I listened to a podcast that examined our stigmas and stereotypes surrounding death, and I was introduced to the concept of a “death doula.” We are generally familiar with the concept of a doula at birth — someone who is not your doctor or midwife or nurse or partner or family member — but is there to provide physical and emotional support for the mother before, during, and after the birth. A death, or end of life doula, provides physical and emotional support for those who are dying, and their families, throughout the death process. It makes so much sense! Of course this needs to be a thing! And indeed it is, right here in our community. Not long after this initial introduction to the concept, I stumbled across the Instagram profile for Threshold End of Life Doula Services, a relatively new service started by Melanie Sheckels, a local hospice nurse.

Sheckels has been a nurse for almost eight years, many of those years with cardiac patients, and has been present for deaths not only professionally, but more recently in her personal life. Her mother passed away just over a year ago, and her nursing experience gave her insight into how to counsel and advocate for her mother throughout the process. “She and I had many in depth conversations about what quality of life meant to her, and she asked me to advocate for her if she was not able to do so for herself. She had an end stage lung disease, and it was very difficult for her to talk and breathe, so she asked the doctor to just ask me to make decisions for her. Those decisions really supported her comfort and her dignity, and it created a lot of peace and healing for us both. So when I look back at that experience, I can see so many ways that could’ve been a really traumatic experience, and I was able to make it a really good one relative to the situation.”

Not all dying people and their families have the benefit of a close friend or family member with a working knowledge of what the dying process looks like, so Sheckels felt that she could use her experience to provide such a service for those families in our community.

“To be perfectly honest, a lot of my experiences around the dying and their families during the end, professionally, have been rather traumatic. Hospital deaths aren’t often pretty. Obviously we do our best, but it’s a cold sterile environment, it’s unfamiliar, and almost nothing that’s happening is within the control of the person who is doing the dying. It’s hard to maintain comfort let alone anything meaningful, ceremonial. I really noticed that all of these experiences had given me this insight and skill for being able to be present for people in a way that really improved their experience.”

So, what does it look like to be an end of life doula? Sheckels emphasizes that it’s really different for every person, every family, but that it ranges from talking through those practical issues such as advanced directives and what different medical interventions look like, to being sort of a life coach. She tries to help each person identify their priorities, and look to those priorities to determine what quality of life looks like for them. Often people have unrealistic expectations of the medical industry, that their loved one is just one intervention away, when this is often not the case. “There’s this idea that if we can then we should. This idea that death is something that has to be fought off. These things put a lot of pressure on the person that is dying.” Sometimes their experience becomes a “prolonged experience of life as a dying person.”

Sheckels helps the person create a care plan called The Best Last Three Months that addresses the emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental domains of life. “We identify what they really need to feel a sense of completion in that area. If you were to pass tomorrow, what would be the hardest thing for you to let go of? Sometimes those things are not really achievable, so we try to tease out what the significance is of that thing and find a meaningful and realistic way to do it.”

Legacy planning is also a part of the discussion. She helps people work through those big questions: “did I matter, how did I matter, and will the people that I’m leaving behind be okay without me?” For the family, she helps them work through planning vigil during active dying, and how she can help facilitate that. It may mean having a doula present for days, 24 hours at a time. Sheckels works with another end of life doula to help accommodate these more intense situations. She can also be a resource for lessening caregiver burnout by listening and allowing that person to express their emotions or staying with their loved one so they can get out and about. 

The concept of an end of life doula has really emerged with the past 10 years, and while there is not yet a certification for the practice, there are various organizations that offer training. Sheckels trained with the Conscious Dying Institute. She explained that many of these organizations are working to develop a certification exam and create an industry standard, and they are also connecting with the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization to blend their work with hospice work, much like a birth doula works alongside midwives and doctors.

Beyond the personal care of families, it’s clear that Sheckels hopes to educate the community about the dying process. As she states, “A lot of people aren’t ready to approach death in a straightforward manner.” It goes back to fear and avoidance. “We take our fear and denial and put it in a closet and don’t look at it.” Through her work, she hopes to bring that fear and denial out into the open to work through it in an honest way.

I’ve often marveled at those who work with the dying and their grieving families, and I wonder about their well-being — their ability to care for themselves and separate from those intense emotions from time to time. Sheckels eloquently shares her strategy for self-care. “To walk people to and from the gate of mortality, I have to be able to navigate that terrain for myself. I have to regularly undertake personal work to maintain the ability to be present in the moment, to connect deeply with myself and others, and to embrace the impermanence of all living things, up to and including myself. That looks like meditation, journaling, therapy, connecting with nature, and completing my own end of life care planning.”

You can find out more about Threshold End of Life Doula Services through Facebook or Instagram, or reaching out at thresholddoula@gmail.com.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Listening To Older Patients Who Want To Stop Dialysis

By Judith Graham

Dr. Susan Wong sat down with an 84-year-old patient in the hospital, where he’d been admitted with a flare-up of a serious autoimmune condition and deteriorating kidney function.

The older man told her he wanted to go home; he’d had a good life and was ready for its end. He didn’t want aggressive care — including dialysis — having witnessed his wife and son die painfully in intensive care years ago.

Wong, an assistant professor of nephrology at the University of Washington, was prepared to follow the man’s wishes, but other physicians, eager to pursue tests and treatments, disagreed. For a week, the doctors argued about what to do. Finally, they discharged the patient, who died in hospice care a few weeks later.

Older adults with advanced kidney disease who want to forgo dialysis often encounter similar resistance from physicians, according to a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine by Wong and colleagues at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, where she’s an investigator.

The researchers documented doctors’ reactions by reviewing medical charts of 851 older patients with chronic kidney disease who refused dialysis at the VA health system from 2000 to 2011. In their notes, physicians frequently speculated the patients were incompetent, depressed, suicidal or irrational.

With dialysis, people are hooked up to a machine that removes waste from their blood, usually three times a week for four hours at a stretch. Many older adults find the treatments burdensome, and medical complications are common.

Yet patients who expressed reservations about this treatment were sometimes labeled as difficult or unprepared to confront the reality of their medical condition. “Still in denial about his kidney disease and his need for hemodialysis in the near future — repeat discussions with patient and wife regarding compliance,” one nephrologist wrote. Even when patients were firm about declining dialysis, doctors repeatedly questioned their decisions.

“Clinical practice guidelines for advanced kidney disease are geared toward survival, not what would give patients the best quality of life or the greatest functional capacity,” Wong said. Another factor at play: Nephrologists aren’t trained to ask seriously ill patients what’s most important to them and shape treatment recommendations accordingly. Although most patients want to have such conversations with a kidney specialist, few do so, studies have found.

“We don’t really know how to help patients with serious illness make decisions that are right for them or what to do when they don’t really want dialysis,” said Dr. Jane Schell, an assistant professor of palliative care and nephrology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Conversations about the potential benefits and burdens of dialysis, as well as alternatives, are especially important for frail patients 75 and older who have two or more chronic conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and difficulty with daily activities such as bathing or walking — a group at risk of experiencing significant complications from dialysis but not achieving longer life.

Healthier older adults have better outcomes on dialysis — a valuable treatment for many people. “We shouldn’t limit access to dialysis based on age, but we should have meaningful conversations about goals of care and make it clear that dialysis is a choice and that patients have alternatives,” said Dr. Bjorg Thorsteinsdottir, an assistant professor of internal medicine and bioethics at the Mayo Clinic.

Options that should be discussed include comprehensive conservative care, which calls for preserving as much kidney function as possible, managing a patient’s health problems, dealing with symptoms such as nausea, swelling, itchiness, pain and breathing difficulties, and preparing for end-of-life care; peritoneal dialysis or hemodialysis at home; and palliative dialysis, a less intensive version of this treatment that keeps people alive for longer but isn’t meant to restore kidney function.

Comprehensive conservative care programs are few and far between (in New York City, Pittsburgh, Seattle, San Francisco and a few other locations), but efforts are underway to change that. With funding from the American Society of Nephrology, Schell and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh have developed an online conservative care curriculum set to debut in March. Nineteen nephrology training programs for physicians are set to participate.

Also, the Pathways Project, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, is working to make palliative care (also known as supportive care) for patients with advanced kidney disease widely available. (KHN’s coverage of end-of-life and serious illness issues is also supported in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.) Dr. Alvin Moss, co-investigator of the project and professor of medicine at West Virginia University School of Medicine, said the project hopes to sign up 10-15 dialysis centers this year.

Sometimes, patients choose a time-limited trial of dialysis with the understanding that they can change their minds down the road.

Cyndy Patton’s 86-year-old mother, Isabel, learned last spring she had advanced kidney disease after going to a Pittsburgh hospital, sickened by repeated bouts of vomiting. Physicians suggested she try dialysis for a few weeks and see if her kidneys might rejuvenate. (The older woman had survived open-heart surgery and a stroke and was living on her own after her husband’s death.)

After a week in the hospital and another week in a rehabilitation center, there was no change: Patton’s mother still needed dialysis. Five weeks later, she confessed to her daughter that the treatment was making her miserable. But giving it up felt like committing suicide, she told Patton — an unacceptable option.

A week later, Isabel had changed her mind. “This is not a life I care to lead, being hooked up to these machines,” she told Patton. “What am I doing this for?” The older woman had consulted with Schell at the University of Pittsburgh about palliative care and hospice care, and she chose hospice.

Dialysis ended and the family gathered at Isabel’s bedside. “She was all ready to die — but she didn’t, and is still living to this day,” Patton said.

It’s an example of how hard it can be to predict what will happen to any given patient with advanced kidney disease. What’s important for the patient to understand is that “it’s not always all or nothing — dialysis or death,” Thorsteinsdottir said.

“Patients have to be very assertive and tell their medical team: This is what I want and what I don’t want,” Moss said. For more information, he suggested people explore the websites of the Coalition for Supportive Care of Kidney Patients (he chairs that organization), the National Kidney Foundation and the American Association of Kidney Patients, and “really spend some time learning about your options.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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End-of-life doulas bring guidance and strength at a time of need

End of life doula Susan Capurso

By Erika Prafder

After her 52-year-old husband died of the flu in 2014, Susan Capurso from Long Island, New York was left feeling helpless, angry and unsupported.

“We weren’t prepared at all,” says Capurso, who had been married for 25 years. “We didn’t have hospice, as my husband’s illness was not a long-term one. At the end, there was no one standing next to me saying ‘this is what is happening now. He’s going to pass within hours and this is what to expect.’ I’m detail-oriented, I wanted to know.”

Interested in offering non-medical, holistic and emotional support to the dying and their families, Capurso began to research the work of an end-of-life doula. Traditionally, a doula is a layperson who aids a woman in childbirth and newborn aftercare alongside medical staff. In the same way, end-of-life doulas are supportive to hospice; they do not take the place of it.

To further her interest in this growing field, Capurso began volunteering for a hospice and enrolled in the certificate-bearing Doulagivers training school of New York City (DoulaGivers.com), a school started by Suzanne O’Brien, formerly a hospice and oncology nurse.

O’Brien was inspired when, on a trip to Zimbabwe in 2012, she saw how local people were trained to sit with a person who was dying and “guide” them through their journey. While the country lacks basic needs and medicinal care, “they did have neighbors sitting with a family member who is dying — holding that space for them,” says O’Brien. “The power of presence might be the most powerful medicine we have, but we’ve lost that in our health care system. We’re all in this together. We should support each other however we can.”

On O’Brien’s course, “training is individualized,” says Capurso. “Weekends are spent with [O’Brien] and everything else is done online through a series of live webinars and modules.”

The three-pronged curriculum covers end of life phases from diagnosis to stabilization, transition and disease process. Elder care assistance and advanced directive (when a patient determines their end of life wishes while they are still able to do so) is also covered.

“This covers the important papers you really need to button up, such as health care proxy, living will, do not resuscitate,” says Capurso.

Practical help is also part of a doula’s workload.

“We come into homes, prepping meals for the week, doing laundry and going through each room to ensure it’s safe,” says Capurso.

Beyond these basics, Capurso extends her healing work to include the creation of a legacy book with patients.

“It’s something we work on together. We go through your life, adding personal stories, photographs and memories,” says Capurso. “It’s not just something you’re leaving for family and friends, it really is therapeutic — bringing light, love and closure.”

Helping patients to compose letters to loved ones and assisting families with writing memorials and eulogies are also customary tasks.

Having your “funeral” before you die is another trend that doulas can help with.

“Why not have a memorial before you go?” says Capurso. “Let’s laugh, say our goodbyes and be happy. It doesn’t have to be scary. A celebration with the dying person there shapes the person’s life and offers closure.”

Carrying out a dying person’s wishes is also a top priority for Capurso.

“I can help find a way for the last days to meet a dying person’s desires. Maybe starting to contact family members to come in for a final visit, asking them to write a memory down on a card and placing it in to a basket, incorporating nice music, candles or aromatherapy,” says Capurso.

This line of work is especially well-suited for hospice volunteers who want to do deeper work, as well as healers, reiki practitioners, massage therapists and acupuncturists. It’s also beneficial to have a genuine interest in educating the community on the resources available for them.

“You don’t go looking for this career, it calls out to you,” she says.

The demand for such caregivers is overwhelming. By 2020, an estimated 117 million Americans will need some caregiver assistance.

“Doulas fit in to the personal companion model, which is a billion-dollar industry serving our elder population,” says Deanna Cochran, RN. Cochran is the founder and CEO of Quality of Life Care, LLC, in San Marcos, Texas, an end-of-life training and certification agency. She’s also the first chair of the End of Life Doula Council within the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

“The dying have specific needs and fears that need addressing,” she says. “As we evolve, the field is ripe for training people to be skillful at this — it’s a movement that’s growing. There’s plenty of room for every single hospice in this country to have at least one part-time doula. Within the next 10 to 15 years, opportunities will also become prevalent at nursing homes and assisted living centers.”

Fortunately, training is more prevalent now.

“There are over 10 certification programs, ranging in price from $700 to $2,500,” says Cochran, who offers a fast-track, 16-week program. “You can learn the skills, but you need to do the work by volunteering through hospice, nursing homes, hospitals. There’s an art to it.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How I Made Friends With Reality

With her signature wit and wisdom, Emily Levine meets her ultimate challenge as a comedian/philosopher: she makes dying funny. In this personal talk, she takes us on her journey to make friends with reality — and peace with death. Life is an enormous gift, Levine says: “You enrich it as best you can, and then you give it back.”


 

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Atheist awed by humanity amid religious rituals of death

Even for an unwavering nonbeliever like myself, a couple of days last week were very close to a religious experience as we watched my wife’s mother, Ruth Aylward Pommer, 87, pass from this life into what she so fervently believed would be glory in the next.

Farm in winter.

by Rick Snedeker

Observing the initially distressful but finally serene end of a purposeful life robustly lived was both moving and humbling, a replaying of nature’s endless symphony of life and death far beyond any human capacity to halt or reverse it. Reality in perpetually unstoppable motion.

I come from a small family, but Ruth’s extended clan is relatively vast, so it was a beautiful and compelling thing to see the legions of daughters and sons, grand-kids and great-grandkids and great-greats, other relatives and friends filter into the room to hold vigil, voice rosary prayers, tell stories, and say their final good-byes.

It was particularly magnificent to see Ruth’s children closely arrayed around her bed, eyes red with anguished concern, stroking her hair, dabbing her brow, whispering soft encouragements into her ears, carefully watching her for signs of pain or distress so they could immediately do what was required to ease it. This is love expressed in its deepest, most primal, most authentic form.

Although I have spent long hours reading and writing about the unsubstantiality of supernatural ideas, as Ruth slipped quietly away I still realized once again what I already knew — that spiritual yearning is as universally human as rage against injustice. And it is powerful. So powerful.

When the kindly young priest from Ruth’s small farming community delivered the words of last rites in respectful, gentle tones, and anointed her forehead and palms with holy oil, it felt ancient, almost primordial. It felt natural to embrace any ritual, any hope that would make this not a sad end but a beginning of something profoundly better.

For many people, few things in life are as terrifying as its end, and the attendant possibility of immortal nothingness, or, worse, endless suffering. This is why most Christians, including, as Ruth was, Catholics, focus their lives on not displeasing God and improving their chances of being heartily welcomed by St. Peter in Paradise one blessed day.

I get it, especially after this past week, after seeing fervent faith up close in ways I rarely do, at a time of great angst and sadness over the passing of a woman much loved and honored in her lifetime. Even I mourn the end of her life in a personal way. Aside from the courtesy, respect and kindness she always showed me, the big-city alien grafted onto a small farming town by way of a happenstance meeting with her daughter in a far-away land, she also gave me another treasured gift: acceptance. From the beginning, she went out of her way to make me feel part of the large family she headed.

So, there I was at the end of her life, a most secular fellow in the midst of a most religious tribe, and I must say, it was terribly moving.

The funeral service in a breathtakingly lovely community church was fittingly transcendent, with its respectfully hushed tones, the great-grandchildren singing “Amazing Grace” in the choir loft, the candles and incense, readings from Ecclesiastes (“To every thing there is a season …”), the well-said sermon that honored and treasured Ruth’s long life. People came from far and wide to attend, some driving for days to reach the church.

And there was comfort food in church halls after the wake and funeral service and then the burial gathering the following day an hour away, where she was to be laid to rest with her husband. Food is part of the ritual of human passing, where pleasure and pain, good memories and sad immediacies, converge for sustenance of those who have been left behind.

As I went through this process, though from a further emotional remove certainly than Ruth’s immediate family, I still appreciated the essential value of such loving rituals and heavenly yearnings in helping survivors move on and face their next existential challenge. I tried to not focus on the reality that these painful passages also can bring out the worst in us.

So, although nonbelievers can often be antagonistic toward faith, I am reminded that it is pointlessly unkind and destructive to ever denigrate something so visceral and nurturing to people’s lives, whatever one’s philosophical differences.

I was thinking last week, as I waited patiently with others for the inevitable, that at such times theology and religious doctrine seem irrelevant, even as they precisely structure the final proceedings of a life lived out. What matters is love, remembrance and, as necessary, forgiveness.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!