One of the hospice patients I’ve been visiting is 95 years old and bedridden. She is clear eyed and can hold a conversation for the most part. Her memory and sense of time are significantly impaired, but who she is comes through clear as a bell. She’s the kind of person I call “salt of the earth.” She graduated from the University of California with a degree in Business Administration in 1950, before I was even born. She first worked as a bank lending officer and spent most of her nearly 40-year career as a bank VP.
When I first walked into the room the other day, she was beside herself in tears because she felt abandoned and alone. It was clear that she wasn’t able to engage much in conversation or say much about her feelings other than crying and feeling depressed. With many people, you can get them to talk, but she was so very distressed that it wasn’t going to happen.
Being that I am a musician, it’s a natural thing for me to emotionally connect to people through music. Instead of trying to get her to calm down with anything brilliant I might say, I just said that I’d like to play some music for her. I have a small bluetooth, battery-powered loudspeaker I carry with me. I connected it to my cell phone and began to play solo violin sonatas written by J.S. Bach, performed by Rachael Podger.
Within a couple of minutes, the beauty of the music distracted her enough that she stopped crying and began to talk to me about the music. She was fascinated that this tiny little speaker I had sounded so good. She comes from an era where big band was the music of the day. I’m an old big band musician myself, so we were able to connect over that as well.
She talked about how she liked to jitterbug back in the day, and how she met her husband at a dance. She was not drawn to him at first, thinking he was kind of boring. But it was his kindness that won her over and they were together for more than a half century before he passed away.
All animals experience through feeling and emotion. What we call thinking is just a more complex form of emotion. So when the thinking part of us can no longer keep up with reality, our emotions are still there. Music, as well as most anything else we experience as beautiful, connects directly to people.
The work I do as a chaplain, whether I’m in a hospital or hospice setting, has the intent to enable people to be heard in their time of difficulty. I’m not trying to make anyone feel better, or to solve their problems. It is in listening to people deeply that they know they have been heard. We all need to know that we have been heard.
There is a meaning and purpose to life. We are here to love each other, and hopefully to always keep trying to get better at it. Whenever you encounter someone who is suffering from illness, nearing end-of-life, or facing the loss of someone they love, instead of trying to make them feel better, just listen. Just be present. When you validate their pain, you also show them your compassion and love, and it is those things which give the strength and courage to cope.
It doesn’t take skill or training. It just takes being the loving and compassionate person you are.
Trying to be kind, we end up interfering.
Trying to be helpful, we end up tinkering,
pushing, and generally being of no help at all.
True kindness appears when our true nature
touches the true nature of another person.
True helpfulness appears
when we are both simply together in the moment.
At this point we share the feeling
of compassionate awareness.
Chapter 19, The Caregivers Tao te Ching
I write my blog for those who prefer to find and know spirituality on their own terms, without the demands from any religion. I write because I feel called to speak equally to both the heart and the mind, because neither love nor rationality has to supplant the other. If what I write speaks to you, please subscribe to my blog, which will always be without charge.
Beautiful Russ. Bach was the right choice. Playing Bach on the recorder really helped me to get through some rough times, when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Specifically, Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring was what I kept coming back to. And what you said about just listening and being with someone; just right! Good work! 🧡