My sanctuary is my favorite cemetery. It’s easy to miss if you don’t know it’s there. Shielded by shrubbery, it runs down a slope to the river. Outside, my life is rushed and I lose the bigger picture. Inside, I walk with ghostly companions, listen to their wisdom, and find perspective.
A poem by a hospice worker during a pandemic.
As a hospital chaplain, I met Mrs. Corrigan in an office adjacent to her oncologist’s office. She had just been talking with him about her terminal illness and about non-curative, comfort-care plans. Mrs. Corrigan was facing the end of her life from a metastatic form of cancer. As a patient now living at home, she had previously undergone many surgeries, radiation treatments, and chemotherapy.
Nothing is more intimate to life than rhythm. Even “dead” matter, gliding on entropy, throbs to the beat of E=MC2.
A set of advices and queries concerning ways that Quaker meetings might sensitively support members and attenders who are experiencing illness, injury, or loss.
My mother, Clare Sinclair, chose to stop eating and drinking at the age of 92. She died nine days later. Her whole life had led up to this courageous step – a life full of optimism, deep feelings, adventure, and stubbornness.
Reflections on the courageous life and death of a dedicated Friend.
