Chaplain's Blog

“Companioning”

When a family begins to accept support from a hospice team, there is usually a sense of relief as the patient’s medical and physical needs come under caring and skillful management. With this help in place, family and loved ones may feel more able to turn their attention to supporting the spiritual and emotional journey underway in the life of the one who is dying. They are freed-up for “companioning.”

Being a true companion to someone who is near the end of his or her life is not easy. It is a challenge to endure our own feelings of sadness and helplessness in order to remain present and accepting of the profound transition our loved-one must experience. But end-of-life companions often discover that there can be grace, growth and blessing in this season for everyone.

Our dying loved-one is living into the difficult mystery of his or her death: gradually embracing this experience as something beyond a failure of living, but rather a necessary part of living. Companioning, therefore, also begins with an attitude of hospitality toward all that is unfolding not just in the dying person, but also within each person touched by him or her. Along with the dying person, companions are struggling to learn life’s deepest lessons about helplessness and trust. This spiritual work may be the most challenging part of a family’s experience in these months, weeks and days.

Love helps us endure the sadness

Now you see how it takes real effort to support someone who is dying—to remain close, without running-from, controlling or changing the journey. As we expect, grief and uncertainty enfold us all. Family, friends, and of course the dying person him or herself are all aware that a huge transition is coming. We all begin emotionally to anticipate the change: the ending of the long journey we have shared; the struggle with the pressing-in of the future.

With caring support from members of the hospice team, many families find that these raw feelings are not an enemy—they may help us move into a new intimacy of treasured days in life’s final chapter. We may risk talking within the family about love, forgiveness and gratitude for each other. The grief is intense. But instead of leaving each person, including the dying person, to experience it alone, we can choose to enter this season of life as companions--to live it fully together.

- Chaplain Norm