The Power of Shared Experience
When I worked as a hospital and hospice chaplain, one of the lessons I learned was the power of sharing an experience, joyful or sorrowful, with another. Life experiences can inextricably tie us to those faces we see in our memories. I remember one family in particular, whose daughter was a pediatric hospice patient. We worked as a team: doctor, nurse, chaplain, social worker, nurse tech (to help with bathing and toileting). We often made visits to this family, both individually and together, through the months she fought for her life. We shared with each other about the difficulties the family faced, and we also leaned on each other when the grief was heavy. You see, home hospice is a very unique place to minister and serve. As a member of the hospice care team, I was ‘assigned’ to a family who had recently been referred to hospice. Most of our patients and their families were served in their homes. We were invited into living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms of our patients. Their