Can We Still Grow at the End of Life?

I REMEMBER cradling my newborn baby girl in my left arm, amazed that she could fit between the palm of my hand and my elbow. Fifteen years have since passed and today she stands 5 ft., 9 inches. Physically, she is almost fully grown; emotionally, like all of us, more growth is needed and will continue throughout her life.

When we think of growth, we focus on the physical; it's what we can see and measure in concrete terms. Emotional growth is less measurable and more difficult to describe, yet it unfolds before our eyes and can be quite apparent as behavior is demonstrated.

However, even more difficult to wrap our minds around is spiritual growth, which has a plethora of definitions and depends on one's faith tradition or perspective.

MY ROLE AS A HOSPICE CHAPLAIN is not to reduce spiritual growth to a simple, one-line definition. Instead, it gladdens my heart to present to hospice patients and their families a bold, incredibly energizing idea: Death is not without hope; growth can happen at the end of one's life.

When you think about it, this is mind-blowing! It's counter-intuitive because we are so focused on what we can see and measure (like measuring our children's height with pencil marks on a door frame). When someone is dying, when biological systems are failing, how is it possible for growth to happen? 

Yet (I dare say), the end of life possesses the potential for a kind of growth that is unfathomable at any other point in one's life.

Jesus said, "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds" (John 12:24 ).

WHEN A TERMINAL DIAGNOSIS comes to us, our instinct is to think, "This is the end." Certainly, it may mean that the end of this life is drawing near. What if, however, as hospice professionals, we were able to help those involved see that it can mean much more than the end?  What if they could see they are, together, on the verge of something beautiful being birthed? The process of dying is difficult, but it is a sacred event that is ripe for transformation in the lives of those involved. It begs courage to enter into this way of thinking, but it offers such potential.

  

THIS POTENTIAL at the end of life can be encapsulated in one word: Hope – hope that something larger than oneself is happening. In patients and families I have met, I have seen both ends of the spectrum, from hopelessness to hopefulness. This could be expressed as, "I'm done; I just want to die," or, "As I die, I want to teach my children how to die and not be afraid of death."

My patients have taught me the truth of what Jesus said in John 12:24:  That life can be birthed out of death. My hope with each patient and family I meet is to introduce them to unseen possibilities and encourage them to step into a blank canvass upon which something beautiful and inspiring will emerge.