Joan Olson on the real questions people are asking

Focusing on What is Truly Important

Mrs. J is dying and her daughters sit beside her bed, chanting their prayers in Farsi. As they pray, I can almost see the minarets towering over the city in their native Iran and feel the heat of the noonday sun. They are Baha’i, and I have been invited to walk this journey with them as the chaplain on their hospice team.

Later in the week I visit Mr. V, a Hmong gentleman whose health has improved so much that he’ll probably ‘graduate’ from our hospice program. He and his wife came to America as refugees after the Vietnam War. Mr. V fought in General Vang Pao’s army, assisting the United States in their attempt to ward off the North Vietnamese in Laos. Mr. V and his wife are Christians, having left behind the traditional animistic beliefs of their ancestors when they left Laos. Mrs. V gets tears in her eyes when she recounts the story of how they learned about God and Jesus and how their faith has grown since coming to the United States. Still, every once in a while they whisper about the evil spirits that occasionally visit them, disrupting their everyday lives. We pray for peace and safety, asking for God’s spirit to bring them comfort and strength to meet the challenges that they face.

As a hospice chaplain, I have the honor of hearing many people tell their stories. It is central to what I do. Over the years, I have learned that when the end of life is near, the most important thing people do is tell their story. People desperately want to know that their life has been significant. No matter who they are, no matter what culture they come from, their questions are the same: “Who am I?” “What has my life been about?” “What will my loved ones remember about me?” and “What’s next after this life?”

I remember a woman who lived in a public housing high-rise. The first time I met her, we talked about her life and her faith. She knew her disease was terminal and she said she wasn’t afraid of anything. I asked her if she had an image of what the next life might be like. “Oh yes,” she sighed. “Heaven is a beautiful place where there’s sunshine and flowers and if you need a place to live, someone will build a house for you.” For this woman, who had never had very much to call her own, simply having a house was heaven.

The religious conversation in this country has become so polarized and so damaging that I sometimes wonder if we will ever be able to hear the real questions that people are asking. When one is faced with the end of life, they’re not thinking about gay marriage, tax cuts for the wealthy or the morality of abortion. Instead, they talk about their families, wondering how their loved ones will deal with their death. They tell the stories that mean the most to them. And they talk about how hard it is to say goodbye.

If only we who are not terminally ill could live like that, with the focus on what is truly important. Facing death, Mrs. J, Mr. V and the woman from the high-rise had nothing left to lose and nothing to protect, so they were free to tell the truth. And the truth is this – every life is precious, no matter who we are. Our journey at the end is the same. Our stories matter, our lives on this earth matter. The ones we leave behind will carry on and be changed because of who we were and how our lives intertwined. They will preserve our lives by telling our stories. Ultimately, I find that a very comforting thought.

Portions of this article appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in the Faith and Values section in October, 2006.

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