“Death is not an enemy, death lives in paradise. What makes anything precious but that it ends? ”

B. J. Miller MD, Hospice and Palliative Care, extraordinary human being.

 I had the good fortune to listen to Dr. Miller share wisdom gleaned through his life experience with encountering death.  He offered many compelling thoughts about the benefits of living in awareness of the fleeting nature of life. If we lived forever, would we appreciate living? Death gives life meaning.

People often wonder how anyone could work in hospice and may think, "It must be so morbid." Yet. Dr. Miller expressed what caregivers know, is the best kept secret.  To accompany a person in the final stage of life is a trans-formative experience for all involved, for Beauty is revealed in the most intimate, profoundly human and life giving ways.  

Medicine has evolved with phenomenal technological advances that enable doctors to save lives. Yet, the system design is flawed because treatment can be impersonal and dehumanizing.  If you were to ask a patient about their hospitalization, what lingers vividly in their memory are the tender moments of connection.  Perhaps, a small act of  kindness that affirmed what matters most in caregiving. 

Dr. Miller shared a time when he was laid up in a burn unit for a few months. One day it began to snow outside and although, his room was windowless he could imagine snow falling softly to blanket the earth. A nurse smuggled a snowball into the unit for him. The sensations of the cold ice melting in his hand, reconnected him to life and it was a turning point in his journey of recovery.

Artist, Erie Chapman reveals in his transcendent writings and photography that we can experience Beauty in the ordinary as we cross a threshold into the mystery and miraculous. It requires a shift in how we see by offering the gift of our presence. 

Caregiving is reciprocal. When we share in our humanity who can say who is the giver or the receiver?  For in truth there is no defining point of a beginning or ending with Love.  

Liz Sorensen Wessel

 If you would like to hear more from B. J. Miller MD go to Ted Talk: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apbSsILLh28