By Deirdre Good
It wasn’t April and I wasn’t longing to go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury in good company. Instead it was on a cold December day that I went to Canterbury behind the ambulance bearing my father to the Pilgrim’s Hospice where he would spend the last four days of his life. It would be the end of his struggle with cancer. My mother accompanied him in the ambulance. She will have her own tale to tell.
Although my father was under hospice care and hospice nurses visited us regularly, we didn’t expect to be visiting the hospice as he had made it clear that he wished to die at home. But during the course of the last full week of his life, it became obvious that while my mother had to this point managed to look after him wonderfully well night and day at home, this was no longer possible. I’d never been to a hospice before but it seemed that no pilgrims could have been more considerately welcomed than we were. The ambulance had arrived abruptly in the late morning and lunch was the last thing on our minds as we left the house. But the hospice took care of the three of us: Dad was admitted and we were offered sandwiches for lunch and the knowledge that he would have better palliative care for his last days.
Each day we visited the hospice different volunteers at the front desk greeted us, and, reminding us to sign in and wash our hands, they went off to make sure that our patient could receive a visit. At the bedside we were regularly offered coffee or tea or hot drinks by hospice staff depending on the time of day. And no one intruded on our grief as we sat and prayed or wept or just held his hands.
The patients recognized differences amongst themselves. The man in the bed opposite my father was going home before Christmas. When my mother was initially confused about the medicines being given to my father, he told her in some detail what the tubes delivering medicine to his body were. One morning as we sat by the bedside, another patient delivered a Christmas present to my comatose, deeply sedated unconscious father, laying it carefully next to him. We found out that he had done the same for every patient in the hospice. When we went to thank him, we found him dressed as an elf. “Don’t look at my green tights!” he said.
And the hospice staff accompanied us every step of the way on our journey towards my father’s death. They met us where we were and they did what we asked. “How did you sleep?” they asked my mother the morning after my father was admitted. “Would you like to be present when he dies?” they asked us both. We were offered an overnight stay to keep watch by the bedside. When we requested that the chaplain come to anoint my father late on a Sunday evening after she had already been to the hospice that morning for a Communion Service, they rang her and she came. Then they moved his bed into the chapel where she lit the Advent candles, prayed over him and anointed him.
Other family members made the same pilgrimage to the hospice that we did. My father’s younger sister was driven across the country by her elder daughter to see her brother on the first day after he was admitted. It was in her presence that he opened his eyes for the last time as he tried to say something acknowledging family presence. My wife Julian flew over from New York City to be there for the duration. My eleven-year old niece, his grandchild, came with her parents from London to play Christmas Carols for him on her violin the day before he died. Hospice staff not only moved us into the chapel for this occasion but also brought in a piano that enabled her mother to accompany her. We listened, sang carols and wept as they each said goodbye to my father, holding his hands.
My father embarked on his own last journey at 2am on December 23rd. The night staff rang my mother and we were there within the hour to see his body for the last time in the darkness of early morning. They had laid a red carnation by his head. They assured us that he died peacefully. And after some time, they offered us tea in the chapel. So we began our strange new journeys without him. As we left the hospice and drove out into the deserted streets, I could hear the chaplain’s blessing and farewell:
Go forth from this world: in the love of God the Father who
created you, in the mercy of Jesus Christ who redeemed you, in
the power of the Holy Spirit who strengthens you. May the
heavenly host sustain you and the company of heaven enfold
you. In the communion with all the faithful may you dwell in
peace. May the choirs of angels come to greet you; may they
lead you to heaven. May God’s tender mercy now enfold you, and
may you find eternal life.
Dr. Deirdre Good is professor of New Testament at The General Theological Seminary, specializing in the Synoptic Gospels, Christian Origins, Noncanonical writings and biblical languages. An American citizen, she grew up in Kenya and keeps the blog On Not Being a Sausage.