Latest / The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell / #21 - Finding Presence and Love Behind the Veil of Death: Volunteering in Hospice Care with Craig Schroeder

Transcript

#21 - Finding Presence and Love Behind the Veil of Death: Volunteering in Hospice Care with Craig Schroeder · The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: And it was such a dichotomy of this beautiful experience of this man able to visit a place, albeit virtually, you know, through slides, of a place that he spent most of his life going to.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: He absolutely loved your somebody of seeing that for the last time in his last hours of his life.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: But right at the foot of the bed, it's this person going.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was quite a place to sit as a volunteer.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I've and then to go out and realizing as I was cleaning my hands is the you know, this energy needs to be turned down.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: And she had calmed down a lot before I left, which I was very happy to leave it that way.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: What's up, y'all?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Seeking Authenticity.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Flint Mitchell, and I get absolutely psyched by having conversations with authentic people that I admire about the things they value.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Their stories and perspectives don't just make me smile, laugh, and think.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: They inspire me to wake up earlier, listen better, focus, and work harder, and help make me a better version of myself.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's my hope that sharing these conversations through this podcast might do the same thing for you.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is a special episode for me because I talk with Craig Schroeder, the volunteer coordinator for Mission Hospice.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I volunteered in hospice care several years back and it was a dramatically positive experience in my life.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: During the entry interview with Craig, I was welcomed into one of the most peaceful and warm environments I had ever been in.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: The interview went quickly from talking about me to talking about death and the possibility of interacting with those who are currently dying.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: It takes a special person to host such an intense discussion with people who haven't necessarily broached that subject too much in their own life and culture.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then, afterwards, my experience from the training and volunteering made me a better and more active listener, less judgmental, and calmer in general.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those experiences that I hold close to my heart.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if parts of this conversation resonate with you, and you find yourself looking for a change in life, whether that be in your environment, perspective, or desire for meaning, volunteering in hospice care is one avenue for you.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: It is worth looking into, and all the information necessary to reach out about the opportunity can be found in the podcast description.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Here, we talk about what hospice care is, the veils that get pulled back during a patient's transition towards death, finding presence and stillness in life and with others, the benefits that can be gained by volunteering in this space, and how impactful the service can be not only for the patient, but also for that patient's loved ones.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really grateful to have spoken with Craig about all this, and I truly hope that it's something that interests you to join and do yourself.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for doing this with me, Craig.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I am excited to have you on this podcast for a couple reasons.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: The first of which was our relationship was somewhat defined by I was a volunteer and you were a volunteer coordinator.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I learned quite a bit from you and from the Mission Hospice trainings, but not necessarily too much about your story or your entry and experience with hospice itself, which I am excited to hear about.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the the second reason is about hospice itself.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's an incredibly valuable um form of care.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it would be interesting to hear more about it and about how people could get involved and why they could get involved.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like what are the what are the reasons for doing it?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so to start off this conversation, I would love it if you could tell me a bit about what hospice care is.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: Hospice care is end-of-life care.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: And when a person is at a progression in their disease process, that they have to make a decision if they want to continue to prolong life or do curative measures, or instead choose a path that brings them comfort care rather than continue to fight the disease that they're on.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: And what this opportunity brings to patients is first, it is proven in many statistics, especially with cancers, that patients actually last longer by doing hospice care rather than going through cancer treatments, because when chemo radiation and everything that's around that subsides, there's more of a quality of life.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: The body can process, does not have to process those chemicals and the radiation anymore and actually gives them a bump in their health.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: Also, a lot of times through um polypharmaceuticaling patients for so long, giving that means many pharmaceuticals, sure, a lot of those medications are brought back.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: And that also gives them a bump in their health because they're not trying to process all those medications as well.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: So, what hospice care really brings in the last six months of life is palliative or comfort care and caring for the patient.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: And with hospice, Medicare says that a nurse needs to visit once a week.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: Home health aid should be provided.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: That is for cleaning and caring for the patient, bed changes, bathing the patient either be a sponge bath in bed or say taking them to the shower and caring for them.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: Medications are covered, uh, they get spiritual care and they also get social work care to make sure that affairs are taken care of and put in order.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: And uh the opportunity of volunteers to provide respite, run errands, socialize, do different activities with the patient, and also with the caregivers provides a different outlet as a patient's world starts shrinking as they start dying.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: They don't have the outlets they used to have.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: So volunteering can bring those outlets to the patient and to the family and the caregiver.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And what that makes me think of when you when you say all that is something that was really hit home for me during the training was it's one of life's biggest transitional periods.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, birthing and deathing are basically two different sides of the same coin.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: And um at the end of life, it is probably the biggest process a person and their loved ones and their family and their friends are going to go through with that individual.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: Period.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, to lead this life, there's a lot that has to get done on the spiritual and emotional level.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it is well said that you know dying is not a medical condition, it is a spiritual emotional condition.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's important because it opens up the conversation, the awareness for people who haven't really thought about this, that it's not like a binary one, zero, it's on off.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a period of transition.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if and you kind of need to be aware of that in order to support the person who's going that through that transition, because there's there's it's it's a process that has a start and a finish, and and you need to, I think once again, from my perspective, one of the issues it seemed like families deal with is that saying yes to hospice or saying yes to these things means starting the process of that transition.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: It it is starting a process, and it's one of the hardest decisions many families or patients have to make.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: Some people view it as finally relief.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, the amount of care that comes in with hospice is you have a nurse, you have a home health aid, your medications taken care of, you get durable medical equipment, hospital beds, if you need an oxygen concentrator, you get that.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: You get all the supplies for incontinence and everything like that, which is delivered.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's a relief to the family.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: So the family could start being less of a caregiver and more of a loved one with the patient and gives them the opportunity to explore this continuum of the process of mending life.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, in a personal experience, when my father did not pass away on hospice, he passed away at a hospital.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um he official death was um CPOD, you know, and um TOPD, excuse me.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: And um, but he was going through cancer treatment, and the pulmonary fibers in his lungs were just growing so big that um his body couldn't control it anymore.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: Had the fortunate avenue of following that continuum with him as he died.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: My dad and I didn't have the best of relationship.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: We saw the world in much different ways.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: But in his process of dying, the veils that covered much of his life and his heart and his emotional being started pulling away or opening up.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: And he and I had a really great connection at the end of life.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: To the point, he saw me truly for who I was, finally.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: And um I don't know if it was a gift or a curse, but he said, Here are the keys to the kingdom.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: You need to care for your mother in the estate, because you're the only one out of all your siblings that that can do that.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: But it was in that process that he saw that.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I think many people have different experiences that are somewhat a lot like that, that is similar, that they get to a different place in their relationship with others.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Was then did you know about hospice care at that time?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: Did you I did not actually?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: I did not um know about hospice care.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: My dad chose to stay at home.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: We were gonna try and get him A back to his house.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: So he my dad loved his garden in his home to try and be there.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh, his breathing was as such that he was not comfortable if he was on an oxygen concentrator because he needed higher volumes.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um so he ended up staying at the hospital.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: They're gonna try and get him to a VA hospital in Palo Alto, but um he passed away before that could actually happen.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so then what was first off, thank you for telling that story.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: I it's kind of a it's one of those experiences that is um has so many different emotions in it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right there, I talked with someone on on another podcast, and he's it was it was about going through the process of of um taking care of the funeral process procession for his mother.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, it was the hardest week of my life, and then the funeral happened, and I saw how many people my mother touched.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was like extreme, you know, intense, raw sadness and utter joy about this like love and connection and network that she built.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is a cool, it's a wonderful story for you to tell that there's like this this procession that can happen with people at the end of life where it kind of becomes I don't know, a little more we the veil gets a little more pulled back, as you said.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: When was then the first time you interacted with hospice, or how did you get involved with it yourself?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um after my father passed away, uh right before he passed away, uh, he had some commercial property and there was a fire one.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I became the project manager to get that going.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: I had to re-establish the trust.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: The trust had to change.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: And my mother, bless my mother.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: She's, you know, she was, she was something, she was a firecracker, some said.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: But she had a hard time actually caring for her own in life.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: And my dad saw that.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: So he said I had to make sure, took care of her finances, the home they were in, and did everything.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: So it took a long time to get through that process of caring for that.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: And when I came out, I was a manufacturer's representative.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: And when my dad got sick with cancer, my job and I unceremoniously parted from each other.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I had many offers to go back into the industry I was in.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: I was a manufacturer's representative for restaurant equipment, back at the house stuff.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: I said, no, my dad is going through some illness.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna wait.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: It took a long time to go back to work.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: During that time, I decided that I wanted to become a nurse.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: It was just an action I wanted to do.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I decided to go back to school instead.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: And while doing my prerequisites, because I didn't have any science background, um, I had, I still have a friend actually, uh Dr.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: Gary Pasternak.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: He's our doctor.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: And uh at Mission Hospice, and he said, Why don't you start volunteering for us?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_03: It will help you a lot to get through nursing school.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I started volunteering and I I took to it right away.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: And immediately I said, I want more than one patient, and the harder the better.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted that experience.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: It was a place I could thrive, whether it was uh a patient with extreme physical conditions that were very difficult for certain volunteers to have, right?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: Or if there was a lot of um psychosocial, emotional issues within the house and the family dynamics that I could work through as well.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: I could be there and be present and be neutral and all that too.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I got handed a lot of different stuff.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: So that was in 2012 that I started volunteering and I I loved it.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: More the better.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you ask for the more difficult cases or patients?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um it was a challenge.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: I had a few cases.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: I had one gentleman, he was fine.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: He was a World War II Marine that um landed on Guadacanal on day three who didn't really want to talk about it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it was okay, but it really wasn't exciting me.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't something that really was motivating me.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I decided to do harder cases.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: I had one patient that was, he was really wonderful, and he had ALS and basically lost his home, lost everything.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: He was single.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: He was put into a um skilled nursing facility on state funds, and it wasn't a very good place.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: And the one joy he had in life, I'm a trained chef, um, was food.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I was asked to bring him food and talk with him.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I spent a long time with this patient going to this place every week, and seeing his decline in certain ways was very difficult, where he could hold his food to the point that I would help him hold his food to the point that I had to feed him, to the point that I had to make soft food for him.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it was seeing that process and seeing his ability decline because he would write on a whiteboard, he would be able to talk to anyone to a whiteboard, to the point that he couldn't do that anymore.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: It brought um it was a deeper connection to go through that experience.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: It it brought something out within me that was very deep.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um the compassion and the understanding and the patience and seeing the frustration what he was going through because his mind was so bright and brilliant, but he could not convey what he was thinking or what he was going through.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, those are the experiences to me that um I hate to say thrive, but it just gives a lot of extra energy to me.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly the way, as a better way than I was wording it in my head was while you were describing that, it made me reflect on not just experiences with patients, but also the training itself was one of the first times I was in an environment or group setting where the energy is there is no not only no judgment, everyone is bringing themselves like out of this positive energy.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like they want to provide for others, they want to create these connections, and in order to do that, you have to not just be vulnerable.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess yes, be vulnerable, but I don't exactly know how to say it.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you you're bringing the best of you into difficult situations because you want to create those bonds and you want to help.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: It it brings the true authentic self.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, to go back to a story of the veils that it's nature for so many people to have veils to operate through life, through life experiences, their good, their bad, their job, their family upbringing.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: We have these veils.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: And to really serve somebody at the end of life, you you have to connect on a deeper part of yourself.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: You have to have the compassion, you have to have the patience and realize it's not about yourself.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: Life could be hell around you.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: When you go to walk through that door to be with a patient, you got to leave all that at the door.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: It'll be there when you come back to pick it up.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: But when you're in there, you're in the moment, and what you really bring is your presence.
• 18:20
  unknown: Right.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: And your presence is what you have to offer.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's a very unique and beautiful thing to be able to just offer presence and let that patient or caregiver guide what is going to happen for that day.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: I like the way you put it because it is it's kind of this thing that connects a lot of different activities.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's a thing that people seek out in a lot of different forms and find um an appreciation for life and an appreciation for kind of anything is that this moment's a moment of presence.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: We all seek it out.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: We seek it out in sports, we seek it out in um, I don't know, vacations or watching the sunset or whatever it is.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeking out this moment of presence, and there's something really beautiful about it.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's that place at the end of the day that you go within and say, What have I really done to contribute to my world?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: Outside of my own personal world of earning a paycheck or whatever.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I happen to have really wonderful and beautiful opportunity that I earned a paycheck giving to so many people.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: At the end of the day, I'm no longer looking at a steamer or a stove or refrigerator or an entire line in a restaurant, which is a wonderful thing.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: But does it really give to mankind and to my world in a deeper, more spiritual, or um greater sense?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: So now I have this great job being a director of volunteer services, overseeing a lot of volunteers giving to people.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: And also the volunteers get something out of that too, because they are doing more than just earning a paycheck.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: They have a feeling of accomplishment, of giving to themselves and giving to others.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I have some volunteers that say, This is my true church, this is where I really meet my spiritual needs, this is where I meet what is much more meaningful to me than the rest of my life.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's you you put it well again, which is it's this kind of moment of stillness at the end.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's forced stillness.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that I I think, or I know we discussed as well in training, which was a lot of these patients are in places where I mean, obviously no one wants to die, but they're in a place where their world is shrinking and life is becoming more still, and they have to face that kind of that place of like, what did I do?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Or how are my relationships?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how true are my relationships right now?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when you come in as a volunteer, you need to come in without any judgment, but you feel that, and it reflects into your own life, and you start thinking about those things for yourself because you're sitting sitting in this place of reflection and silence, or stillness.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, not too much silence.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, you're talking with them.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's hard to deal with that stillness and to kind of deal with the reflection.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: It um I'll back up a little bit on that.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: That doing this work and starting off a volunteer fundamentally changed a lot of my views of life and changed me in so many different ways.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: Some are very small, some are big, of really learning how to accept people for who they are.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, the rules are is we don't judge, we don't correct.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: And we don't proselytize.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: You accept everything as is.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_03: And it is really profound to have to live in that world and start moving those lessons that you're learning into your own life.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes volunteers will do that on a conscious level, or just doing this work moves things on a more unconscious level.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: But I have to say the family of volunteers that Mission Hospice has is a really amazing collection of people.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: They're very different.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: This is not cookie cutter people, or, you know, your personality has to be like everybody else's.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's the uniqueness of the individual that meets the uniqueness of each volunteer situation.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: No two deaths are the same.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: Out of all the patients I have seen, nothing was the same.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: Everything was different.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: And all you can do is be there with understanding, compassion, heart, and openness just to accept it as is.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: As the five precepts that we teach in the training by Frank Ostosteski, who started the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco during the AIDS crisis, one of his precepts is know-nothing attitude.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: Come into each situation not knowing.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you come in knowing, you miss the opportunity.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: You miss the opportunity of learning or seeing something differently.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: So a know-nothing attitude will really open your world up, and it's a great thing to practice in life.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: I would then how do you because these are difficult um maybe not difficult concepts to talk about, but how do you go about trying to teach and communicate those to the volunteers who are learning them before?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know that that's a really good question.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um everybody has life experiences, nobody is flatline, everybody's had their ups and their downs.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: And to have people go within and see that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I really enjoy the trainings I've done where we have filled the room up with people.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um and have people just immediately talk about why are they truly there?
• 24:30
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: And to see that story from day one to the last day, it changes.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: That it's actually becomes a journey for the volunteers that are in the training, that they're doing a journey within in order to prepare themselves to volunteer.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: Many other hospices don't do it that way.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I built upon a great training that was handed to me and even made it more deep.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, like in communications, uh, some of the exercises where we do where you just stare at somebody for a minute and a half without talking.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes that's the way it is with the patient.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you have to prepare somewhat in training to have somewhat of a focus.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: You might have a patient that you're talking for a couple months and then they lose their voice, they have a stroke, they've had some sort of um other sort of cognitive event where they can't do that.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: You're still with them, you can connect with them, you can communicate with your eyes.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: We have a wonderful volunteer, uh Judy Carlson, and she was a nurse, career nurse at San Francisco General and worked the AIDS ward in San Francisco General uh from the very beginning.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, she's had patients, she had one young man for almost five years who only communicated from his eyes.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: And she would play music and she had a whole dialogue and conversation with him.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: And he was in a care facility, but his parents were amazed on how she can communicate and get so much out of him.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, these are the type of things that we can afford to learn by doing this work.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a really good, it's an important comment is how much how surprised they were that of the energy he gave up, he gave back.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you come in with this mentality of not having an ego, like willing to appreciate, willing to learn, willing to just communicate with your eyes, or just kind of being there, your presence, it's reciprocated.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's always reciprocated because, or it's almost always reciprocated, because they the other person knows you're there for a good reason.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is a also a really important thing to touch on with this experience, is these are skill sets that while maybe much more uh in your face in this kind of environment, they're skill sets that are hugely applicable to life.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, every aspect of life.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: Oh absolutely.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to make a deeper connection with other people and understand people and maybe get out of the bubble we live in to really understand others, this is a great place for that.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: Again, working with death and dying is not for everybody.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's like black licorice, not everybody likes it.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh culturally, we run from death as a culture overall.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: And you look at other cultures and they embrace the dying process, they learn from that, it becomes part of their process.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: Our culture really doesn't really do that at all, which is really a um it's a missed opportunity in life to really be at the end of life, to understand what life is.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: There is so much wisdom and and knowledge that our elders have that we don't embrace as a culture.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I think volunteering in hospice is a great way to embrace that.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, sometimes people are, you know, they have dementia, they they have Alzheimer's, but within that, there is a learning process within us that we learn from those people that we apply in other places in life.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Something that I really would like to bring up is um, I personally had a had a wonderful experience volunteering with Mission Hospice.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was something that impacted me greatly, especially I I think this is important to note.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: I volunteered at 22 years old.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it was probably one of the and kind of even by like it wasn't something that I was searching to do.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: It just kind of was I found it and I was like, oh, let me try this.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then it dramatically impacted who I was um as a person, and I think it's a really valuable experience for anyone to go through.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, like you said, you know, it's not for everyone, but for people listening who think that it might be up their alley, it might be an experience that they would like to have, uh, or even be introduced to.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: What is a way that they could get um in touch with you?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and maybe could you touch a bit about the volunteering process itself?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, I can do that.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: First, I'm gonna say that you've been a great volunteer and you would love to do other things.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: You came in with this total science mind, working in the science world, working in a lab, and going from a total controlled lab situation to caring for old ladies and old men that really needed you.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember there was one old lady who just loved your smile and you made her day.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I really thank you for that.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes all it takes is that smile.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I loved her view, man.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the best way to start volunteering is to get a hold of us through Mission Hospice, and that is www.missionhospice.org.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we have a web page.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: You can read more about Mission Hospice, who we are.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: We are the only community-based nonprofit hospice in San Mateo County and serving Santa Clara County as well.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I will give you information uh that you can post on how to get a hold of me direct directly.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we can start the process.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: We have a training starting the beginning of October.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_03: It is 26 hours and it's going to be done first time ever virtually due to COVID.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: And um please look for that information on your podcast.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Put it on the podcast description for you.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that way it could be posted.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: That way you can find that information and get moving.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: We have a volunteer informational meeting on uh Tuesday, I believe it's September 22nd, if I remember right, uh, from 12 to 1 and from 5:30 to 6:30, where our staff will be presenting what they do to care for patients and how volunteers interact with that.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: And then we'll have a volunteer speak about their experiences as well.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: So an opportunity to sign up then, or you could send your application in now.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: We can start the process from there.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh for the listeners, all of this information will be in the podcast description.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um also, I think one thing I'd be interested to ask is what is maybe one of the what are the reasons you usually tell people about or or why they might want to volunteer or the things that they might experience and get out of it.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Or the training itself.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: No, the you know, the training.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there's that's another that's another podcast now, isn't it?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um we have volunteers as young as 16 and 17 who are looking for a um career being a medical clinician.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh they are go-getters and they are really wonderful.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: To volunteers who are in their late 80s.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: So everybody gets something different out of it.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: Some people want experience so they can get there, but really it is the basis for anybody who wants to be a clinical medical worker to get that bedside experience down because you learn deeply about a patient.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: You may only have five or 10 minutes as a nurse, an ER doctor, or a surgeon or whatever it might be, but to realize that there's a real human there that has real life stories and that everybody's value, no matter what their life experience is, is what people get out of this.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_03: And for people who are in a are writing code or you know, selling something, um, it's a way of giving to your community and giving to yourself, to give yourself like, I'm I I'm adding value to this world.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm giving back to my community into my world.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_03: And those are the big things that happen with our volunteers.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I think it's really important for you to touch on how wide of a spectrum of people can get interacted with this kind of thing.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is it's invaluable for a person who's looking into medicine in any form, whether it's nursing or uh or becoming a doctor.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a potential opportunity for someone who's not necessarily jumping into that path yet, but just thinking about it.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And for people completely outside of the out of this medicine, uh, the field of medicine, um, it's a potentially wonderful experience to contribute to your community and like you said, contribute to yourself.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's absolutely.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: We have people that have high pressure jobs in you know, in the tech world and in biomedicines, and they need to get out of that world because it's so different than volunteering.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: And they actually feel that's what they're giving the most value to themselves and to the world.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're earning a great paycheck in those other industries, and and and that's wonderful.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: We all have to live and get ahead in life.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: But at the same time, at the end of the day, I'll go back to what have we done to give?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, I love that.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that falls into a question which I think is relevant and important, which is why do you think, especially with your experience, it is so difficult for people to have these conversations, especially in our culture, or to interact with this experience of death?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um nobody gets out alive.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: You, I, everybody listening to this podcast, nobody gets out alive.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think we have a better understanding of ourselves and fellow man.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: If we see this process, that does happen.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, some of our patients are young.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: We've had patients, we had one person who passed away at 18, he was on service for four years.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: We had somebody at the mission house that was 107.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: You have all these different experiences.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: Can I say that I know what's going to be like if I have the opportunity to experience my dying process?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: I have no idea.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: But I have a lot more openness to it rather than being closed off from that process.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's that's really important.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: To me, it's the biggest mystery in in the world is dying.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody has a different experience.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_03: No two deaths are the same.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it's it's like you said, it it come, it comes for everyone, right?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it whether you want to think about it or not, or whether our culture wants to talk about it or not, it is there at the end of the day.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something that will be broached.
• 36:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Something uh that actually brings me to a kind of a divergence.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Could you tell a little bit about the hospice house and the different, maybe different types of volunteering that go on at Mission Hospice?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so we'll start with volunteering and we'll start.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: You have direct care volunteering, and that's with patients.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_03: We have indirect, which is doing administrative support, doing other things where you're not in contact with patients.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, with direct care volunteering, there's different things you can do.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: At the mission house, we have shifts that are two-hour shifts at the house, and it's a uh six-bed facility in Redwood City where you work side by side with home health aids, nurses, and doctors, and families there are a lot.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_03: The beautiful thing about the mission house is we allow families in.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: We're considered an RCFE, which is a residential care facility for adult living, and we are licensed to do that.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of those facilities, because of COVID and the pandemic, are not allowing people in.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: We afford that opportunities for families to come in and be with their loved ones through the dying process, 24 hours a day to be there.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_03: What the volunteers do is a lot of things at the house.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_03: There are from a second set of helping hands.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_03: A home health aid needs to give a sponge bath or you know, oral care to a patient.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_03: That volunteer there is there to assist.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_03: They feed patients who can no longer feed themselves.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, they help with diaper changes.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_03: They don't do them, but the home health aid is there.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: The volunteer is there to help and talk with the patient if the patient is talkable, to hold the patient, do different things like that.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, a lot of times, volunteers, because the patient is in there and there's nobody around, they'll just go in and talk with the patient if the tank, if the patient is uh conversive.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: If not, they could go in and before COVID, they could hold the patient's hand and just have presence because even when people are in coma, they know inside somewhere that there's people around them.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: They know what goes on around them.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, people have come out of coma and have talked about conversations that everybody thought this person is no way they could hear it.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: They're out of them.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: And they said, hey, this is a conversation that happened in the room, this is what's going on, this is what you said, this is what they said, so on and so forth.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_03: So anybody who thinks somebody just because they're unconscious or quote, in coma, they still receive.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_03: So having a volunteer there to give to a patient who is close to death is very important because they feel that.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: They feel most patients will feel comfort and ease in that.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: So they provide that.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: Patients can be agitated at the house.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: We try and respect the needs of the patient and the family of not doing a lot of drug interventions.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: So if they say we don't want a lot of drugs, but the patient is feeling agitated.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_03: So those different medications that take care of that are given at a minimal dosages, just the presence of a volunteer in there will calm a patient down so there's a conversation going on.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes they're talking with family members.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: Family members who want to tell a story about their loved one who is not present at the time.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: They may need somebody just to give their grief with, to share their grief with that goes on there.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: Also at the house, there is food to be cooked, things to be cleaned.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, going outside, sometimes they put patients in wheelchairs and walk them around the neighborhood, bring them out in the yard, and do many things.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, the house volunteers are very dedicated to what they do and they rarely leave.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: And you instead of having one patient, you have up to six.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it's difficult because you get attached to a patient in two or three weeks, they're at the house and then they go.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: Most of those patients are there for 10 days to two weeks, although we have one patient right now that's been there for over a year.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I think that brings up a really important subject, which we touched on earlier.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because we it I think it's obvious from this discussion that there's a lot to be learned as the volunteer, and there's a lot of value given to the patient, but also the patient's family is part of this process, and it's a huge part of this process because, like we said, there's probably a veils are kind of getting pulled back, and maybe issues are arising or connections are reforming.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: The and uh probably everyone listening to this has some sort of experience they can empathize or connect with because they've probably gone through a a family member, someone else who's died.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of stress and emotion that goes on in the family, and even denial of the situation and all this stuff, and and having that volunteer there is like kind of like you said, it's like soothing.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's soothing for everyone in this situation.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: Volunteers could be a grounding rod.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, as we say, we don't judge and we don't process sides, we also don't take sides.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you could come into a family dynamic in a home where people are pulling on you to take sides for their family dynamic issue.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: And we always have volunteers is I will listen to you.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and and listen, but never take sides when somebody needs an what they can consider an ally against other family members.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: We don't do that.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_03: Family dynamics sometimes are the much bigger issue rather than the patient, you know, going through the dying process.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_03: The patient's deathing well, it's the family that's falling apart and going through crazy.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's many times said the real person shows up in the face of death when it comes to family dynamics.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I could tell many stories about those situations where frustrations come out into the family, unresolved issues are happening.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, with other people, that true gentle love comes through, and whatever dynamics that might have created tensions before melt away very quickly.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: So that heart-to-heart piece also happens.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: I've also seen a situation where I had a patient and he was in a very bad place.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: He had melanoma that started in his sinus cavity.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: He was in amazing shape, was a backpacker and a bicyclist.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_03: And that cancer grew to he literally had a tumor on his face about like this.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: And there was all sorts of discharge coming out of it and everything.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he did, he couldn't see out of one eye, it was completely swollen his nose.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_03: And when I came in, it was late in the game, and he um I was there to bring pure soup and watch the food channel with him.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, never quite got to the food channel, but he loved Yosemite, and I had brought in a bunch of photos.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: I had a Yosemite on my laptop, made a disc, was showing to him.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_03: His aunt came in and she had an agenda of anger, anger towards doctors in Mission Hospice.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: And she was giving me a really hard time back.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_03: He couldn't feel, he couldn't see this.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: This is a waste of time, and how how wrong it is there.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I was talking with him, and his name was Greg.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Greg, if you can hear me, just squeeze my hands, squose my hands.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Can you see my Screen, squeezed my hands.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_03: He did that.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: And he saw these pictures of a place he loved.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: And we got to the fissures by Taft Point.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: And he tried to talk to me.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: He was like squeezing my hands, and I couldn't understand him.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_03: I felt so, so sorry that I couldn't understand.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_03: Meanwhile, his aunt is just ridiculing what I'm doing, what's going on, went out to tell his mother to get me out of the room that this is horrible.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: So we went to this slideshow, and I finally closed the computer and said, Greg, I'll I will see you tomorrow.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I went out and this woman was raging.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, what is going on?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I was washing my hands at the sink because I was finishing my visit.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I knew she went to Lowell High School, and she was the same age as my aunt.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: So I just turned to her and I go, You went to Lowell High School in San Francisco, and that was the high school where all the smartest people went.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: What year did you graduate?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I just started shifting the conversation.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then it came out as how angry she was that the doctors let her nephew live for so long because he never wanted to live in that condition.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I never met her at her place, but I just tried to shift what was going on.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_03: And by the time I left, she was a lot more gentle and there was a lot less tension in the house.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: And as a side note to that, that patient died within 12 hours after that visit.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I certainly hope he died with visions of you somebody from those pictures in his head.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's a wonderful story.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's such a good, I mean, there's there's so much going on there, it's hard to really capture it all.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's this the interaction.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is once again, like you're not even able to speak with him, and yet these small squeezes of his hand show you the connection that is being built, and this the maybe some semblance of joy coming out of this experience for him in such a hard time.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: And also this idea of right, this it's you would never blame the aunt for feeling this way.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: She just loves this her nephew so much, and she's angry, and there's emotion, and and she doesn't know how to deal with it, so she's just getting pissed off at the first person she sees.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: And even in that state where this woman is dealing with the death of someone she loves, someone can come in.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't bring anger, or you don't fight her, if you come in with this this no-ego, no judgment attitude, they feel it, right?
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: And even if she's not gonna like you don't, you're not doing it so that she'll change her mind about you, you're just doing it to be there, and she doesn't have to, what's the word?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: She doesn't have to accept it, but it just the fact that it happens is is wonderful.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: If the volume just gets turned down on that intensity and that energy that she brought into the house because this woman, that was her son, her oldest son, the mother.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_03: And there was another son in the house that had some sort of mental disabilities and was not helping.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a huge amount of stress on the mother.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_03: Last thing she needed was her husband's sister to come in, turning the volume up in the house.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it was such a dichotomy of this beautiful experience of this man able to visit a place, albeit virtually, you know, through slides, of a place that he spent most of his life going to.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: He absolutely loved Yosemite of seeing that for the last time in his last hours of his life.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_03: But right at the foot of the bed, it's his person.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was quite a place to sit as a volunteer.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I've and then to go out and realizing as I was cleaning my hands is the you know, this energy needs to be turned down.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: And she had calmed down a lot before I left, which I was very happy to leave it that way.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is a comment that kind of brings full circle uh uh something that's very uh apparent in this conversation.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: You said turning the volume down, right?
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that is definitely touches on this aspect of presence and stillness, and and lowering that negative energy allows kind of that stress level to be soothed and for people to be brought into that moment and allows that man who's passing to just be there and experience this thing that he loves so much, where albeit virtually still, it's like this idea of the volunteer or the and the doctors and the nurses of bringing in stillness or presence, which is so kind of elusive in our lives and so important for us.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, um I love The Grateful Ted.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: Robert Hunter, their songwriter is such an incredible wordsmith, and he is actually in the music writers hall of fame, songwriters Hall of Fame, along with Jerry, and a good number of songs that they write and do are about death.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_03: And there's one song called Black Peter's about a man who's dying.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_03: And in that song, it goes, I just want a little peace to die.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_03: And to me, that is what we all want.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um people may have had an incredibly difficult life, poverty, addiction issues, uh, a lot of tragedy, a lot of loss in their life.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_03: And in the end, what hospice can't afford is the essence, is peace.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, peace for the patient and peace for the family, creating that stillness that you you've mentioned and that quiet place in order for that peace to happen.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's what we all want.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_03: We all want to die in peace.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that touches again on just this subject of death.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard for us to bring up, it's hard for us to talk about, even when it's facing us, you know, in a family member or in a difficult situation.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: But this ability to be there and to be present and to bring peace is it's it's wonderful.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: And what I would like to finish this conversation with is if people could take one message or a couple messages from this discussion, what do you think it would be?
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_03: Live each day like it's the last day.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_03: There's a wonderful book out there called Living Life Like It's Your Last Year.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I really think we should all do that.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: It will give us a different place within us.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_03: It lets us live more from our heart.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_03: And let go of some of the petty things in life and really live life with more presence towards your fellow person and within yourself to afford the opportunity to have that peace in life.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's wonderful.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Craig.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: You're welcome.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: There is a vulnerable space that is forced onto all of us by the death of loved ones.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: But the way we enter and interact with that space is up to us.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Something I'd like to point out is that Craig and I obviously couldn't cover every aspect of volunteering in hospice care.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you felt at all that you'd like to learn more, or that some part of this experience would be impactful for you, or something you might want to be a part of, and you live in or near the San Mateo or Santa Clara counties in California, I urge you to reach out to Craig at Mission Hospice to get more information.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: The details to do that are in the podcast description.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: I wholeheartedly believe in the work they do and the service they provide.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: With that said, while I cannot advocate for other hospice organizations in specific, I would imagine that wherever you are you could find a similar volunteer opportunity.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: All it takes is a Google search.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like I mentioned in the introduction, this is absolutely an avenue for creating a change in your life.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's trite but true, helping others is one of the greatest ways we help ourselves.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: Lastly, however you find it, whether it be through a volunteer opportunity like this, through meditation, prayer, breathing exercises, walking, reading, or any other method.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: From my perspective, that transition from the high-energy stress and craziness of life to moments of great presence and stillness is one of the most wonderful human experiences we get to live in.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: It makes me wonder how and when I might stop next for a couple moments to be still and grateful for today.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe it does for you too.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you like this episode of Seeking Authenticity, that's freaking awesome.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: All I want to ask of you, the listener, in return for the time and effort I put into making it, is that you take a deep breath.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean really breathe.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Breathe so that it stretches out your shoulders and your back and your chest and pushes out your stomach.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: No more of these shallow, bullshit breaths.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're barely keeping you alive, my friend.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: And after you exhale, go out and soak up today.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because in the end, your actions and the way they interact with the world and the people around you right now are all you have in this life.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: So be authentic with them.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Peace.