Dear Sacred Dying Family,

Today is All Soul’s Day, the Day of the Dead, and the time of year that many cultures and communities remember those who have died during the past year. Death is the work of Sacred Dying, but as you know it is also a profoundly heart-filled giving work. We mourn all the people we have helped in their passing. And if we have lost family or a dear one to death, it hurts our heart even more. We want to remember the people we have loved, what they went through in their dying. Our turn may well be next.

One of my favorite death-songs is called “Into the West” sung by Annie Lennox. It was written for the film The Lord of the Rings. Will you take a few moments and watch the video?

Thank you all for your part in this extraordinary ministry. And let us remember all our dead.

Love, MEGORY

We don’t want to talk about it: every audience becomes a tough one when Sacred Dying Foundation speaks. Yet the absolute and incontrovertible statistic is that 100% of those born will die. Death is as natural as birth, as ordinary as birth, as sacred as birth. But even with this absolute, our culture can barely even utter the word death.

We say “end-of-life”.

But End-of-Life encompasses many stages and phases. Sacred Dying Foundation has dedicated its time and resources to the final phase: the days and hours of active dying. This is the sacred part of the process that comes between palliative care for the individual and bereavement for survivors. Relatively speaking, the hours of dying are a mere blip in time. But the same could be said of the hours of birthing. It’s difficult to imagine a modern society that does not have trained people available to assist with birth… and yet… we persist in our denial about death. We continue to die alone: taken by surprise and wondering how and why it happened this way.

We are not born alone. We don’t have to die alone: Vigil Training.

Please help Sacred Dying find its future. Contribute what you can HERE.

WWII recruiting poster

At age seventeen, my mother was recruited for the war effort. WWII returning veterans needed psychiatric nurses, so the VA targeted young women who had recently graduated from high school with top honors. They wanted girls who were quick studies for their one-year intensive program, and young Delores Stroble was just what the doctors ordered. So Mom left rural Minnesota farm life to enter this program in the big city. She was smart, but she was green, and there were certain aspects of psychiatric training that were pretty frightening, as you can well imagine! But the one encounter that left the most lasting impression on her was not with one of the huge, scary, physically fit patients… it was an encounter with a comatose patient who was dying. The good news for this man was that the psychiatric ward did not want him to die alone. The bad news for Delores was that she had no idea what to do for him – or for herself – when she was assigned to “stay with him until he dies”. She was a good and practicing Catholic, so she prayed; but still, she was shaken. Mom can still recite part of a longer poem that she penned that night. Sitting cross-legged in a closet (her only privacy in a dorm full of other nursing recruits), she wrote:

I stood with Death tonight beside a stranger’s bed.

                                                    Cold Death, when Life had fled

                                                    he touched my heart and burned

                                                    an image there. I yearned

                                                    to loose his hold, mere mortal I,

                                                    but helpless watched

                                                    a stranger die.

This was very clearly a spiritual experience for a young nursing student: worthy of training and tools, both during and after the actual death. Perhaps now in 2011 — as Mom’s youngest grandchild crosses the threshold from the tender age of seventeen into adulthood – this generation can benefit from the paradigm shift that Sacred Dying Foundation is working towards with its Vigil Training series.

Cary Grant and Grace Kelly

So back to reality. Most of us these days die from disease and what we called a “prolonged death.” Not so forty or fifty years ago. Then we just had heart attacks or strokes and fell over dead. These days, we get cancer and we die over time. There are good things to that and not so good things to that. The not so good thing is that we tend to drag things out medically. Everything becomes about fixing the disease, drugs for pain, side effects, and coping with diminished strength. The good thing is that we have time. Time to think, time to be with those we love, time to just be alive.

Try making a list of what you would like to do, who you want to see, what you want around you. Do you want to go to Paris? Do you want to spend time at the beach? Do you want your children and grandchildren around you? Let people know. One of the things we have learned is that we don’t talk about this enough. Our children and grandchildren don’t KNOW what we want or don’t want.

One thing we have also learned is that, as a rule, we pretty much don’t want to die alone. That just seems too scary. We want someone to be there and hold our hand. We want someone who will wipe our forehead and brush our hair, tell us that it will be okay. That seems a good thing to me.

Some of us can do something about that. Sacred Dying is joining “No One Dies Alone” or NODA to train

Beth Dying: a scene from LITTLE WOMEN, 1994

volunteers in hospitals across the country. They will sit with you and hold your hand, wipe your brow, brush your hair. They will read to you. They will assure you that it will be okay. They will vigil with you until the end. It’s pretty simple, actually. If you are facing an illness that means your death will come sooner rather than later, call your local hospital and see if they have the NODA program. If they don’t, suggest that they bring it in. Sacred Dying will provide the tools for training the volunteers. We’re calling it our Vigil Training Series. It is designed specifically for NODA hospitals. Contact us if you want to know more. This is a good thing. It gives people a way to die that is honorable. And not alone.

Whatever your own personal meaning of vigil is, Sacred Dying vigil programs can guide you in both traditional and non-traditional vigil prayers and give you ideas on how to use vigil candles and vigil prayer for your purposes. Get Sacred Dying’s free tips on vigiling.

When a loved-one dies but you are unable to be there, grief bereavement counseling can help you heal. The above-referenced organizations know the true meaning of bereavement and understand that in addition to assisting the dying, their work helps bereaved survivors as well: through the knowledge that their loved-ones were compassionately accompanied in their journey.