Hospice Laughter

After  retiring from my pastorate, I accepted a job as part-time chaplain at the Duke Hospice.  Once or twice a week, as needed, I visit with patients and families at the inpatient hospice on Roxboro Street in Durham.   This is a place where grief flows in an abundance of tears, but it is also a place where life and relationships are embraced and welcomed.  Strangers become like old friends, sharing their struggles and their joys, even their laughter.  It amazes me that families can still laugh in the face of death. Sometimes, I have heard the laughter  from the patients, too.  Laughter in the face of death?   To some it may sound profane to link the two.   To me, it seems to answer the Apostle Paul’s question, “O Death, where is your sting?”

One of my privileges as chaplain is to be part of an interdisciplinary team that meets each Tuesday.  For an hour or so, doctors, nurses, a social worker, a volunteer coordinator, medical interns, and a chaplain join in a review of patients.  We remember those who died and I, as chaplain, usually say a “blessing” or leave the medical team with some word of encouragement.  

Sometime we team members cry a little.  Sometimes we complain.  Sometimes we are astutely clinical and detached.  And sometimes we laugh—about anything .  One time we laughed about a patient who was brought in on a stretcher one week, then walked out to search for a place to live the next week!  Most stories don’t end that way.   Yet, many are the times when family members return to say “thank you” to a team who has brought comfort in difficult times.

Sometime they hug us.  Sometimes they cry.  But sometimes they share the soothing gift of laughter!