Thanks for the window of awareness into the hospice worker world. In a way, if you have a very close friend, you're a hospice worker in the making. Either you'll be there by their side when they go, or they'll be by yours. In the end, it's better to be by someone else's side when they're ailing. When your friend dies, you lose a friend. When you die, you lose all your friends.
This experience of watching a friend die was difficult. Even his mother and brother did not visit him in the hospice. When the person I was with in the restaurant called his mother to say her son was about to die, she said she was too busy to visit.
In Japan when you die you are cremated. Your family and friends gather and place your bones into an urn using chopsticks. When my friend died there were only four people there. And one person was a member of the staff at the funeral hall.
This was a very sad and lonely death, but when I sat next to a person who worked around dying people constantly, I tried to imagine what it would be like to provide support to people during their last moments, and realize that some family members don’t care nearly as much as you do.
I thought it would take a courageous person to do that sort of work.
Thanks for the window of awareness into the hospice worker world. In a way, if you have a very close friend, you're a hospice worker in the making. Either you'll be there by their side when they go, or they'll be by yours. In the end, it's better to be by someone else's side when they're ailing. When your friend dies, you lose a friend. When you die, you lose all your friends.
This experience of watching a friend die was difficult. Even his mother and brother did not visit him in the hospice. When the person I was with in the restaurant called his mother to say her son was about to die, she said she was too busy to visit.
In Japan when you die you are cremated. Your family and friends gather and place your bones into an urn using chopsticks. When my friend died there were only four people there. And one person was a member of the staff at the funeral hall.
This was a very sad and lonely death, but when I sat next to a person who worked around dying people constantly, I tried to imagine what it would be like to provide support to people during their last moments, and realize that some family members don’t care nearly as much as you do.
I thought it would take a courageous person to do that sort of work.
wow John, that is both heartbreaking and inspiring. the chopsticks ritual is fascinating