It is a Wednesday night, Threshold Chorus practice night. We are singing by the fireplace just off the elevators on Acute Care in our local hospital. A man is wheeled by on a bed, coming off the service elevators apparently being admitted through the Emergency Room. He appears unconscious and is being followed by a woman in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank being pushed by another, much younger woman. I see them, I watch them as they pass by us. 

The next morning I arrive for chaplain rounds at the hospital. I check with the charge nurse for important details about each patient’s condition and their reason for being there as well as her opinion about who might want or need a visit from someone on the Spiritual Care team. She makes several suggestions and I head down the hall. One man mentioned had been admitted through the ER the night before. An elderly gentleman described as a stroke victim who was “ being kept comfortable and expected not to make it”.

Later, as I come to his room, his nurse is preparing to leave. I introduce myself and he says he has just finished giving him a bath. I ask about the family and am told the adult daughter, who had spent the night with her dad, had gone home to check on her mom who is in a wheelchair and on oxygen. He said she’d left about an hour before and I think to myself that surly she will return soon.

His name is Ron and he is in my favorite room of the hospital. It is a large room on the southwest corner of the top floor. The south and west walls have large windows with a beautiful fireplace in the corner between the two. The room looks out over Red Mountain to the South and the Flat Tops Wilderness to the West. The entire valley is shrouded in clouds and looking west the Flat Tops are completely hidden under a blanket of low white clouds. It has been raining all morning and the ethereal beauty of what I am seeing strikes me as heavenly. The room feels peaceful. It feels cool and fresh, light and clear.

Ron is lying under a sheet with a blanket folded neatly across the foot of the bed. He is not conscious. He is not wearing oxygen.

I stand beside his bed, which is still raised high from his bath. 

I watch him for a few moments then I lean over and gently touch his head. I tell him my name and that I am there to just sit with him awhile.

My words are irrelevant. 

They are words at a time when silence is perhaps what is most needed.

Just the day before, I had been listening to a taslk given by Frank Ostaseski on being present with those who are dying and this quote from his talk pops into my head:

“Not knowing is most intimate.

Stay present, stay very close to the situation.

And find a moment of rest in the middle of things.”

It is mid morning and the windows allow me to watch the mountain storm that now holds the promise of sun. The clouds appear to be lined with a silver light. There is no anxiety, no hurry, no fear, no uncertainty, only the moment we are in. 

Ron is dying and I have never felt more alive.

Moving to the foot of the bed, I very gently hold his ankles in my palms. I watch his breath. He is breathing rapidly. His mouth is open, his eyes are slightly parted and unseeing. He has been bathed and his mouth has been moistened. His room is clean and empty of any signs of anything. No food trays, no bedding or towels wadded up in a corner. His bed is neatly made and the top sheet folded back. 

Although his breath is rapid and shallow I do not sense struggle, merely a body slowly shutting down and letting go. My breathing is easy with long, slow, deliberate inhales and slow complete exhales. I see myself in this room, one of my favorites, standing at the foot of the bed, holding this man’s ankles, simply supporting his feet from beneath him. I lower his feet, and cover them again with the sheet.

There is beautiful music coming from the speaker in his remote control that rests on the pillow by his head. It feels too loud so I lower the volume thinking that there is no need for loudness about anything right now. Pulling a chair to the side of the bed, I lower the bed and then the railing and I sit. I gently take his hand letting it rest on top of mine. His breathing is still rapid and he is a bit flushed in the face. I lean close and place one hand on his heart and whisper quietly and slowly,

“It’s OK Ron. You’re doing a fine job. You just take your time. You’re not alone. I know they’ll come and then you’ll know it’s OK to release the fear. Only the love will remain…the love that has come to you will go with you and the love you have given will stay in the hearts of those who have received it.” 

I am aware of times when this might be a trespass. But I feel no uncertainty that what I have spoken is the truth. I am also just as certain that he is the gentleman who was wheeled past us last night, the one flanked and followed by two women, his wife and his daughter. The ones who have gone home to rest and shower and then return. 

My hand rests, still and unmoving, under his, gently reassuring him of my presence, hopefully not interfering with the work he is doing. His breathing begins to deepen and slow down. He takes his air in deeply and holds it there, releasing it with a quivering slowness. A small pool of tears gather in the corner of each eye.

I look out at the sky. The trees are glowing in golden yellow splendor; the clouds are moving and swirling with an outline of silver from the sun. I marvel at the sight and I breathe a sigh of gratitude for my life and for this glorious moment. I send his family love, suddenly feeling as though they will not be here when he moves across the veil.

Quietly I hum and then sing songs from the Threshold chorus. I am not ashamed at the sound of it. It is a gift for him. I make up words that fit and I can’t tell you now what they were. I sang about angels and the presence of the Divine. The words less important than the vibration of sound and the intention of love. 

His breathing slows, then quiets, and then it stops.

His hand is still on mine. I do not take my eyes off of his face . Waiting for one more breath that does not come. A minute passes. Then another. He is wearing a Do Not Resuscitate bracelet on his arm, his dying is not unexpected there is no need for me to do anything in those first moments.

I watch as the color drains from his face and his brow softens. His whole face softens. I reach up and gently close his eyes.

Another minute passes and I press the call button for his nurse. When I look up at the clock I see I have been there, undisturbed, for over an hour and a half.

Another minute passes.

A male nurse appears and I say quietly, in a whisper so as not to disturb anything, “I think he is gone”. “His last breath was 3 or 4 minutes ago.” 

The nurse listens with his stethoscope and there is no heartbeat. He says he needs to notify the charge nurse and asks if I will be all right. I smile and assure him that I am fine and that I will stay. I ask him please to shut the door and when the door shuts I exhale a deep sigh and cry for just the briefest moment feeling overwhelmed by the presence of something so Divine in the room and knowing I have just been given a great and sacred gift. 

I know nothing of this man. He face seems kind to me. He has hands that remind me of my grandfathers, large and gnarly and well cared for. I do not know anything but I trust that my words and my singing were appropriate. 

A few minutes after the nurse left, a man about my age came in with tears in his eyes. He introduces himself to me as the son-in-law. I touched his arm and say “I’m so sorry.” But he is not looking at me. His eyes are fixed on Ron. He is crying but trying not to. I ask if he would like some time alone with Ron and he says yes then 

thanks me for being there.

I left him, silently shutting the door behind me. The white rose on the outside of his door being our message to the world that someone had just died in this room.

I offer the story of this experience because it touched me. There is an assumption that those of us who chaplain in hospice and in hospitals know death, that we have all been with the dying as they die, that we have all held the hand that drains of life, and have all closed the eyes that continue to stare. But this assumption is untrue. 

The experience of being alongside and alone with one who is dying is so profound, so beautiful and so filled with the sacred that it can hardly be described. But neither should it be feared. When I whispered to Ron that I knew they'd come and that he’d then know it was Ok to release any fear, I was not speaking of his family, I was speaking of the legion of angels that I believe come to companion the ones who die as they cross the thin veil between this world and the next.

Witnessing life moving through and out is more profound to me than witnessing a baby’s birth. There’s something so beautiful about the mystery surrounding death. Something so beautiful about the unknown. 

I know not everyone shares my sense of comfort with death. And I know not all death is like the one I just shared. But in sharing these experiences, maybe I can help some people feel a little less afraid of it and a little more interested in befriending it or a little more comfortable in at least talking about it.

I am happy I was able to be with that gentleman in his dying. I imagine he and I are now somehow connected, that I will one day know him somewhere else. Even in so brief an encounter, when at such an intimate time, I have all kinds of imaginings about those we meet only at that particular crossroad. And some day I'll know.

Until that day, this is SJ. TY for listening. A huge and special TY to those of you who have gone to the trouble of accessing the website seanjeung.com to buy me coffees to support these podcasts continuing. Blessings to us all as we continue this living.