During our conversation, the nephew kept repeating, “That type of thing should never happen and it wasn’t fair to my aunt.”
His anger was obvious.
I agreed with him.
Every time.
The nephew’s aunt—who’d raised him since his single-parent mother had died before he entered kindergarten—was the most important person in his life. Her final days in hospice, as far as he was concerned, became her worst days.
Based on the brief chart notes I’d scanned about this sixty-something woman, I hadn’t expected any frustrations about hospice. When I phoned not long after her death to ask how he and the rest of the family were doing, anger stalked our entire conversation.
Here, though, I should pause. I’m making most of this up, based on my thousands of calls to people grieving in the first days after the death of a loved one. There was no nephew. No aunt. And the “type of thing” that “should never happen” could’ve been many different possibilities:
A hospice staff person ignored the patient or the family.
A social worker made a promise to bring a list of local companies for caregiving options, but never did.
A home health aide didn’t properly dry the patient off after a bath.
A hospice physician had said she’d visit the family in the morning, but didn’t arrive until late afternoon.
A chaplain said an explicitly Christian prayer, but the patient was Buddhist.
All of the above were possible, but none of those happened to this fictional family with a nephew desperately hoping his beloved aunt would have a calm, easy, gentle death.
In his view, she did not have a “good death.”
While I will be confidential about the specifics, I agreed with him. I may not mention the very real concern that had been expressed, but there was a very real concern.
When I worked at hospice, I didn’t have many bereavement calls like this, but they happened. Instead of hearing about the person’s roller coaster-like days as they struggled with the waves of grief, I got anger. Instead of a daughter grateful for how well the hospice treated her father in the last month of his life, I got anger. Instead of a sister overwhelmed by the business demands of her brother’s estate, I got anger.
No hospice, or any human institution, is perfect. Mistakes happen. Sometimes the right words are said at the right time. However (unfortunately), sometimes the wrong words are said at the wrong time. People experience the same situation, but have differing interpretations. Maybe a sister hears a nurse’s or chaplain’s comments as refreshingly honest while her brother deems the same words as demeaning.
Did what the nephew described really happen to his beloved aunt? I don’t know. I wasn’t there. As difficult as it was to listen to his non-stop anger and his repetition of complaints, I knew one thing: whatever happened, his perception was that a wrong took place.
I promised to share his concerns with the appropriate administrators at my hospice. No one should have unsettling events adding to the anguish of a loved one’s final days.
After the call, with the phone back on its cradle, my office quiet, and with the clouds beyond my window drifting lazily across the sky, I brooded. His anger had pierced my heart.
Though without the courage to "confront" the nephew in a cold call type of contact, I wondered if anger masked his grief? I could be wrong. Still, while observing those floating clouds against the endless blue, I continued to hear the roiling hurt echoing from his voice.
I suspected he was like others I’ve encountered (including, of course, the guy in the mirror known as me). When a loved one dies, grief staggers us. We feel crazy. It makes us isolated. However competent we think we are, we are suddenly incompetent. However in control we are, we spin out of control. If last year, before the dying and death, we tackled a lengthy to-do list, how come starting only one thing now stumped us? Grief is a sneaky, churlish, irksome companion.
Grief can be so hard to live with!
Why not be angry instead?
Anger, such a seductive feeling, tempts us to lash out at anyone who may have contributed to our loved one’s death. It’s their fault.
Anger, which feels like action, lures us into identifying every bad experience as intentionally directed at us and at our beloved.
Grief demands the passage of time and thoughtful, tough work. Anger is instant gratification.
I was reasonably confident the nephew’s complaints would prompt positive changes in that hospice agency. He may never be satisfied with any “results,” but his concerns all had merit.
But where I grieved after that call, though in insignificant ways compared to the nephew’s loss, was that he will continue to be fed by and led by only his anger.
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Photo by Tahiro Achoub on Unsplash
My book, A Companion for the Hospice Journey, is available at Amazon.
Anyone who works in this specialty understands what you are saying. We've heard and said it a thousand times, "It's no necessarily what was said, it was what they heard." This starts at admission to hospice and carries on throughout death. Grief. Impotence. Loss. I can't think of one person with whom I've worked over the years that has not been lambasted by a family member. Whenever I've been in charge of IDT, InterDisciplinary Team, for those of you who aren't familiar, I insist on each discipline talk about those who have died within the 2 prior weeks. 100% of the time they are complimenting each other and patting themselves on their backs. My most important question at that time is, "What could we have done better". I expect a soul searching honest answer because we don't learn from our successes, we learn from our failures, shortcomings, the woulda-coulda-shoulda's. Thank you, Larry. I am now sitting thinking about all of the anger I felt/feel/expressed about my family members' deaths, and the times I've had families come to me with their feelings whatever they might have been.