Listening with Your Heart: Counseling the Terminally Ill

By Eula Rae McCown

One of the most rewarding jobs I ever accomplished was working with cancer patients at a radiation center in Austin, Texas. Several of my doctor and minister friends asked me to write these stories so others might learn the lesson of living our lives to the fullest, even in the face of death.

I enjoyed this job, because I felt completely called by God to serve his people in this manner. This job was one of the richest blessings of my life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 7, 2007
• ISBN: 9781469111575

Eula Rae McCown

I was born in Seabrook, Texas in 1927. I graduated from Webster High School in 1944. I married, had three sons, and traveled as an Air Force wife for fourteen years, including living in England and Africa for three years each. I graduated from North Texas State University with a degree in Gerontology and Aging Studies at the age of 58. In 1986, I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. My first job was as a chaplain in a cancer center in Austin, Texas. I was ordained as Minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1990. Later, I was hired as Minister to Seniors at St. Louis Catholic Church, Austin, Texas a congregation of 25,000 members. I retired in 2001, but remain active in church work in my community.

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The Path I Followed

In 1976, after starting a Meals on Wheels program in the small town in which I was residing, I realized that God wanted me to work with the elderly. In order to prepare myself, I attended North Texas State University, where they had a School for the Studies of Aging. One semester while there I took several courses relating to dying. My husband was shocked at my choice of courses but I explained if I wanted to work with the elderly, I needed to accept dying as a part of living. I could not work with the elderly and when someone died, run from them.

My first two death experiences, as a child, had been terrible and yet I knew I had to expose myself to death to see if I could help or not. The first case, was when my aunt died. Aunt Bell was dad’s sister. We had all gathered around the grave and her casket remained open. Just as the attendant went to close the coffin, my fifteen-year old cousin ran yelling and screaming to the coffin and fell into the coffin on top of her mother. This had a terrible impact on my mind . . . I was five years of age at the time.

The second death experience occurred when a neighbor’s son drowned. The boy was about eight years of age, one year older than I at the time. He ran away to go swimming with a group of boys, at the swimming hole. He suffered from epileptic seizures, and one occurred while he was swimming in the water. The whole town turned out for the funeral. The service was at our Methodist Church we all attended. My parents took me to the church and the children were separated from their parents and led to the front pews on the right side of the church. I don’t know whose idea that was. I can’t imagine treating children like that today. The coffin was open and when the service ended, the children were guided to walk by the casket and view the corpse. I will never forget the terrible feeling I had as I saw this childhood friend dead in his casket. A dead person does not look like a living person and it is a terrible shock for a child.

Each one of these experiences occurred before I was ten years of age and I had a terrible fear of death for many years.

I have always been filled with compassion and felt the need to go to people when there is a loss or a problem. I never intrude, but only go to those I know. I have found to be present for them is usually enough. Of course, I embrace them and express my feeling of sorrow and offer to help any way I can. Just for them to know you care enough is a comfort to most.

I have been raised in the church all of my life and have a very strong faith and belief in God. The God I worship is a loving heavenly Father. He loves us with a love we cannot understand. He did not put us here on this earth to play games with us, as a cat does with a mouse. We all have a destiny and He is ever ready to guide, lead and sustain us, if we but ask. I do not believe people understand that God does not intrude in our lives, we have to call upon Him. He is there waiting for us, with his love to help us. We must call on him and this is prayer, just talking to God.

From the day we are born we are dying. Each day we are a day closer to death. I have always feared the unknown, so I decided I’d find out all I could about death and then I would not fear it.

My mother died of the Lou Gehrig disease at an early age. For some unknown reason she feared death up until the last day I saw her alive, in a nursing home, about two weeks before her death. She had been a faithful church member all her life, yet why this terrible fear?

At the time of her first diagnosis, I was working as a church secretary