Blessing Our Goodbyes: A Gentle Guide to Being with the Dying and Preparing for Your Own Death

By Kathie Quinlan and Timothy Quill

When it is our time, is there any one of us who would not hope for a gentle ending to our lives and a peaceful death? Yet for many, this longing remains elusive. Fears and apprehensions cloud our understanding of what is involved in the "getting there." Many of us choose not to think about death or even consider preparing for this second of our universal human experiences. This death-unease can lead to our avoiding being with a dying family member or friend, sadly missing the precious chance to say goodbye. It may also prevent us from taking on the challenging but vastly rewarding role of caregiver. It is important to know you do not have to be alone.
These lessons, learned from the dying themselves, will show you how the final journey--lived fully--can be the most extraordinary of your life. And yes, your goodbyes can be blessed in ways you could never have imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: May 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781621890867

Kathie Quinlan

Kathie Quinlan is a registered hospice nurse and retired director of Isaiah House-a two-bed home for the dying in Rochester, New York. She speaks frequently on issues related to death, dying, and living.

Book preview

Foreword

When I first met Kathie Quinlan, I wondered if she might be a saint. Her soft, high-pitched voice and strong sense of spirituality made her appear almost ethereal. Yet shortly thereafter I learned that beneath this cherubic exterior lay a tireless and passionate advocate both for her own patients as well as for other patients who were dying without the benefit of hospice care. In Rochester, she developed a two bed hospice residence called Isaiah House that became known for its willingness to take some of our community’s poorest and most challenging patients. Kathie has been very frustrated by and vocal about our culture’s persistent denial of our mortality, and the terrible consequences of depriving patients and families of much of the meaning and connection that is possible in the last phase of the life cycle if we could somehow find the courage to face it squarely. She has always been both a romantic and a realist about hospice. Her attention to the details of each patient’s story of illness, their relationships before and after becoming sick, and their spiritual journey more often than not allowed her and her team to find what healing might be possible for each patient and family going through this process.

In her wonderful new book, Blessing Our Goodbyes, we learn initially about the personal losses that led Kathie to her life’s work of caring for the dying. She also shares a wide range of her patients’ stories. Some of these stories were of very accomplished individuals with tightly connected families that led them naturally to an acceptance of death and a kind of life closure that we all might hope for and find meaningful. At the other end of the spectrum (and this in many ways is the specialty of Isaiah House) were lives that had been tormented and fractured, and relationships that were severely damaged before the patient became terminally ill, where she and her team struggled to find what kind of closure and meaning was possible. We learn from this wider range of human experience that dying is filled with possibilities big and small, but there is no set formula. Yet Kathie shares what has worked for her, and in doing so gives us ideas and inspiration about how to proceed as caregivers with the most difficult cases as well as within our own lives. The players in these dramas include the patient and family, but also the patient’s other caregivers and friends as well as the hospice personnel.

For those of us who for better or worse happen to be human, facing these issues including our own mortality at some point become core parts of our lives (though largely ignored or denied by most of us most of the time). Those of you who have found yourself unsure about what to say or what to do when confronted with a family member or friend or patient who is dying will get some gentle but definite guidance from Kathie in this book. She teaches us it usually begins with a kind, caring, listening presence, and a commitment to be with and respond to the patient all the way through the illness until the patient’s death no matter what unfolds, and then on to the bereavement period for the family left behind. In the last chapter, Kathie also chides us and guides us to begin to prepare for our own mortality. Whether we are current caregivers or if we are contemplating our own eventual futures, we would all do well to consider the advice and guidance of this gentle, yet ferocious clinician.

Timothy Quill, MD

Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Medical Humanities

University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

Rochester, New York

Acknowledgments

My stories could never have been told had Isaiah House not continued to be these past twenty-four years. With all my heart, I thank my dear nurse friends who, with beautiful hospice-hearts and in a variety of ways over many years, have selflessly shared their compassionate gifts; the hundreds of loving volunteer caregivers—our greatest resource and blessing; all those who in countless ways have faithfully supported the mission of this home for the dying and the exceptional palliative care and hospice professionals in our community from whom I’ve learned so much.

My gratitude also to my cherished friend Arlene Helget, who worked steadfastly beside me as administrator for those first twenty years; to Cathy Fanslow, a most gifted hospice nurse whose insightful and gentle teachings twenty-five years ago have guided my efforts ever since; and to Fr. James Brady Callan, who bravely blessed the dream, making possible all that followed.

A heartfelt thanks to my precious family, including among others, my husband Bill, our dear daughters Beth and Dorothy, their husbands, and our 7 delightful grandchildren, who believe in the power of story and for whom this will be part of my legacy. And most of all, I am deeply and lovingly indebted to our dear daughter Linda and her husband Dave, for without their encouragement, guidance, and unfailing support, this book would never have been written.

Introduction

How daunting a task this book seemed to be when I first began. Yet how could I not write about the dying, for those dear hearts with whom I spent their last days have been my wisest of teachers. Perhaps their very human, often poignant, stories, which have long lingered with me, were waiting to be told so the value of their lessons could be shared with others. For it is through these stories that their lessons come to life. And so, with a head and heart full of such stories, I begin.

In the early to mid 60’s, my husband Bill and I endured the untimely and devastating loss of two of our cherished five children. Both suffered a rare degenerative central nervous system disease about which little was known—at that time, it didn’t even have a name. Virginia, our third little girl, died eighteen days after her first birthday, and Michael, our only son, just before his. How these precious little ones changed our lives, never again to be the same. One of the most treasured lessons we all learned was to live just one day at a time. Really, that was the only way we could live during those two agonizing years—watching, waiting, hoping for another day and

Reviews for Blessing Our Goodbyes

[judycroome_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A gentle, wonderful guide by a hospice nurse about death and dying and how it affects not only those who are on this final, inevitable road, but the loved ones they leave behind. I only wish I had found this book during the last 18 months of my beloved Dad's life. At times leaning towards the saccharine, BLESSING OUR GOODBYES is mainly a soothing, helpful "chat" about questions we all wonder about but don't know where to seek answers - what do the dying feel? How do we act around those dying? What will our own death be like? Quinlan compassionately explores these and other questions in a conversational tone that does much to remove the fear surrounding the thought and experience of death in today's modern world which tries to ignore this inevitable part of life. Quinlan succeeds in making death as natural as birth and in doing so has brought me much comfort and, indeed, makes the final goodbye possible to be a time of peace and blessings as well as a time of sadness.