Dying Well - a book by Dr. Ira Byock

One of the things that I am doing these days is losing myself in reading books about death and dying. Several weeks ago, I went on-line to my public library system and ordered 12 interesting books. And then I realized I had another 6 to read for my New York Zen course. So I'm totally immersed in conversations with all these different authors.

One of my favourite authors so far has been Dr. Ira Byock, who wrote a famous book back in 1997 called Dying Well. He's an American Palliate Care Physician who was originally from Montana, but now lives in California and teaches at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. This book is so inspiring because he writes about wellness for dying people.

Plus, he puts forth an idea that conversations at death can bring about what he calls "life completion" in ways that actually improve the family relationships. Wow! This charges me up and makes me want to look for opportunities to be involved in this. I'm still not quite sure how this could happen for me, but it does seem to be a part of the palliative doctor role. It's logical to think it is also part of the end of life social worker role, whether in private practice or through a hospice.

I'm looking forward to 2 different volunteer opportunities I have coming up in the next couple of months - one at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and the other at the Kensington Hospice. But first I have to jump through all their hoops, which are formidable indeed. For the hospital role, I had to visit my GP 5 times to get all the immunizations and blood work tests confirming my antibodies are high enough. The hospice required a vulnerable persons' clearance through the police. Fortunately they've sped up their back log and now it's down to only a 2-4 week wait.

The good news is that the more I learn about the field of end of life care, the more inspired I am and the more convinced I want to work in this field. In fact, today I found myself googling end of life care jobs in the US! I can certainly contemplate travelling wherever I need to go to get the job experience, if it's for a relatively short period of time. So for now it's one foot in front of the other and I need to get started with the volunteering, and do a few more weekends down in New York City. 

Contemplating Contemplative Care in New York City

So the big event this week was taking the overnight MegaBus ($33 each way!) to New York City to attend the first 2 days of Contemplative Care training. The New York Zen Centre for Contemplative Care is offering this 9 month long course to individuals wanting to learn to bring more presence to end of life conversations. One might wonder how long I contemplated the decision to take on this long-distance commute before committing and the answer is simple - 24 hours.

The day after I got laid off, I sat at my computer and started googling. I searched "death and dying", "dying well", "mortality awareness", and other uplifting phrases. And then I got a short email from my friend Tonya Surman suggesting I check out zencare.org. I looked it up an immediately said YES. This is it. The corner stone that I will build my career change around. I did notice that it was being held in New York, but initially I ignored that. I spent the day searching the web but couldn't find anything else like this in Canada. A big Canadian bummer to that.

I also noticed that the deadline for registration was June 20, 2 weeks prior. So, me being me, I send an email with an appeal about just being laid off and needing to register NOW for THIS YEAR, and got a response back in less than an hour encouraging me to apply and be considered.

It's hard to describe how right this decision has felt. Of course there is that 12 hour overnight bus ride at the beginning and end of each training period, once a month. Now, I don't know many other 50 year women willing to travel this way, but I have always said that one of my greatest and most useful talents in life is my ability to sleep anywhere. Even on a bus, even crossing a border in the middle of the night and being hauled off the bus for the usual border interrogation.

So in order to be accepted into the program, I had to apply (which I did immediately), I got a reference letter from my Buddhist teacher, Sensei Doug Duncan (which he gave), and I made my first trek down in July by overnight bus to both check out the program and test the travel arrangement. Both passed, and I wrote the check for the year.

I'm not sure what all I will learn at this training, but I'm really looking forward to hanging out with these wonderful teachers and 35 fellow students for 2 days each month. We are all involved in volunteer placements and will have the opportunity to discuss our experiences with these with each other in person and with our groups, buddies, and mentors between the monthly sessions. We're a mixed bag of persons from various Buddhist and non-Buddhist backgrounds, and I'm on the younger end of the age average, with a few 20 somethings, but the majority identifying as empty nesters or retirees. And I'm the only Canadian amongst the Americans, most of whom are actually from New York or the surrounding area. I have to say I'm looking forward to hanging out with Americans again after so many years in Canada (I'm an American by birth but have lived in Canada for the last 32 years.

So more on the content of contemplative care when I know more about it. For now it's just about getting more comfortable with myself and trying to figure out what it would mean to bring more presence to my conversations.

What do I know about death?

I'm wondering whether everyone else knows as little about death as I do. I truly don't know what any of the impending signs are. I don't know what happens in the last moment, or even in the week leading up. I know it's wildly different disease by disease, but I really don't even know that range.

Earlier this week I ran into Gord, an old friend of mine who I met at my son's daycare 15 years ago. We got to talking about my career change, and he mentioned that he imagined that in old age he would want to do something similar to what we did for our young children. When our kids were little, we set up our own daycare in a home-based setting. We deliberately made it legal, but outside of the licensed daycare system supported and encouraged by the Ministry of Social Services (as it was then called).

So maybe we will set up a home-based home for elderly persons, and let the younger elderly persons take care of the older ones. We'll hire some kind of elderly worker to watch over everyone. Not necessarily a nurse or doctor, but rather someone who really likes old people. And have it be a place where we all take care of each other.  Where we aren't afraid to talk about death and dying.

It doesn't have to have a unified spirituality among the elderly, but it does have to have a layer of honesty and connection that one rarely finds in seniors homes. You see, you can't live your whole life connected to other families and then expect to want anything different when confronting death and dying.

What would help me between now and then would be to go to a "pre-death" class with my husband, similar to what we went to when we found out we were pregnant for the first time. A series of classes that would tell us about what happens in death from a physiological perspective. But also one that would build in the excitement for the death experience for family relationships similar to the way Ina May Gaskin's book called Spiritual Midwifery inspired us with our first baby. For those of you who don't know this wonderful book, you should read it, whether you're pregnant or not. It's not about religion at all, but rather it describes child birth as an exciting family affair capable of transforming young adults into connected and caring parents. She inspired me to have a home birth for my son, with my husband, brother-in-law, and 2 step sons present at the birth, and with friends and parents arriving and helping out within hours. And our family has never been the same, for the good.

If you know of any good "pre-death" classes in Canada, let me know. I would sign up in a flash. I can't believe others don't also want to sign up and learn about this.