Category: Growing Older

A GOOD DEATH – reflections from a former hospice chaplain, Revd Tom Lusty

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Revd. Tom Lusty, LCI member and Vicar at St Giles, Bramhope reflects on ministry spent as a full-time hospice chaplain in the context of Covid-19.

Given the five years I spent inhabiting a hospice on a more or less daily basis I now know that death isn’t all that bad. It can sometimes be protracted and exhausting for all concerned. But even in such circumstances a good death is possible. With a good death there is a tangible sense of completeness, of dying with integrity.

To be honest I did not spend a great deal of time talking about death at the hospice beyond using euphemisms for it. For some of the nurses heaven was their euphemism of choice for death: “Gladys has gone to heaven now – God help them all up there”. I did speak, however, about my Christian faith when invited to do so, and the opportunities that came my way to speak about resurrection hope were considerable.

Within our tiny specialist world hospice chaplains have developed a repertoire of material that enables people to prepare spiritually for their own dying. Three resources that were and remain helpful to me are Mud and Stars, which gave me the theology, Tom Gordon’s A Need for Living which gave me the metaphors, and John O’Donohue’s Benedictus which gave me everything else: when there is nothing else you can do, you can always bless. That is a powerful thing to be left with – if you can bless sublimely, even better.

Dying is not about so much anguish and forsakenness. A good death is a movement towards integration – from “dislocation to relocation, from disorientation to re-orientation, from disintegration to re-integration” as Mud and Stars puts it. Part of a wider crucifixion/resurrection dynamic where we are always on the lookout for resurrection.

The cover photo of a book by Tom Gordon entitled New Journeys Now Begin depicts the access path to north beach on the Island of Iona. The inscription reads “No bikes beyond this point”. For each of us there will come a point where we have to relinquish the bike to go on the next stage of the journey. Getting off the bike can be painful because we get used to cycling everywhere. The more in life we can put the bike down and enjoy the view, the better prepared we will be for that moment in life when we will each have to “say goodbye to the bike”. As it were. This is a metaphor. A metaphor for resurrection.

As well as using metaphors a lot a group of hospice chaplains adopted a mnemonic as a helpful way into conversations about dying. The HEALER model goes like this:

H is for Hope – what takes people in a trajectory away from despair.

E is for Exploring Feelings – encouraging people to articulate their feelings.

A is for Adjustment to Loss – exploring how significant loss is transcended.

L is Looking Back – doing a life review: anything significant left unresolved?

The E and the R stand for Existential and Religious issues – some people are terrified of death for reasons that go beyond fear of the physical process of dying. I put that under ‘Existential’. Religion comes last of all. That is healthy because it says not all our needs are religious ones. We may choose to express our grounds for hope in religious terms but never exclusively so.

The HEALER mnemonic provides us with six different prompts as a helpful way into a conversation about dying. These prompts are not to be tackled exhaustively in chronological order (imagine how awful that would be) but rather as a means of focussing on some of the ways in which the conversation might go. 

Given that Easter this year coincides with the beginning of the six to eight week peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK using prompts from this mnemonic might be helpful during that time if we wanted to reflect on our own mortality. Devoting a little space to reflect on our own dying (say ten minutes, once a week) will certainly make us more open to engage with others who may be starting out on the process of the end of life’s journey.

When someone asks “what hymns are you having for your funeral?” a closed response “goodness, I have never thought of that” may not always be adequate. A more open-ended, personal response to the question might well allow the questioner to fulfil a need to talk openly about death.

In any Christian model of spiritual preparation for dying you can’t leave out the letting go …and the leaping. John O’Donohue describes the daily handing over of one’s life as the act of awakening and surrender. The possibility of this daily practising of such a hand over, however we may choose to do it, of our lives into the life of God may well be what makes us most Christ-like. 

Each morning we awaken to the light… each night we surrender to the dark… Awakening and surrender: they frame each day and each life; between them the journey where anything can happen.

John O’Donoghue, Anam Cara  

The HEAL(ER) mnemonic was devised by Revd Linda Elliott, at one time Chaplain at Thorpe Hall Hospice in Peterborough. 

Books mentioned in this article:

Mud and Stars: The Report of a Working Party on the Impact of Hospice Experience on the Church’s Ministry of Healing

A Need for Living: Signposts on the Journey of Life and Beyond Tom Gordon and New Journeys Now Begin Tom Gordon

Benedictus: A Book of Blessings John O’Donohue 

Anam Cara John O’Donohue

Where are older people in the Christmas story?

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4 advent candles

Recently Fr Diarmuid O’ Murchu spoke to many of us from around the country about imagining the Church of the future. One of the major themes he developed was that wise Elders (older people) are key, alongside younger people, to empower the Church of the future.We older people have a place in the Church. Our discernment, experience and gifts are still important to help build up our church communities. Sometimes we feel invisible and the stories of our lives unnoticed and unimportant.
This Christmas piece is offered as encouragement to think about the Christmas story again, believing that older people might be part of the story too! This exploratory way of looking at Scripture is encouraged by the Jesuit spiritual tradition as it can help us to imagine ourselves in the Gospel story and reflect on what we individually see, hear and think about.
We know that not everything that happened in the Gospels can possibly be included. The narratives were written by at least four people who heard accounts from numerous others, some of whom were eye witnesses and others who were not. The oral tradition of passing on events was very strong at the time.So: here are a few thoughts! If this does not help you to reflect on the Nativity narrative that is fine.You may have other ideas and that is one of the joys of being human – that we are all different.
We understand that Elizabeth, Mary’s relative and her husband Zachariah were older people when Elizabeth became pregnant. And I find the Visitation: this powerful encounter between two pregnant women wondering about the future, and their encouragement of each other is a beautiful early part of the story of the Birth of Jesus.
We know that Mary and Joseph were required to journey to Bethlehem for a compulsory census. The paintings of their journey traditionally depict them travelling alone. But isn’t it more likely that a journey on foot or by cart and donkey taking at least four days would have been done in a group, and probably an extended family group? Joseph at some point decided not to abandon the unexpectedly pregnant Mary. We do not know exactly when he fully reconciled with the situation, and decided to accept her and the baby. It is my hope that though family members might have been suspicious about this pregnancy, seeing them as a loving and patient couple on this arduous journey, they too saw the deep faith both had in God and each other. The accommodation available in Bethlehem was not ideal but I hope that some of the older women in the extended family would have supported Mary at the birth of Jesus and that family members would have helped Mary and Joseph then and subsequently. And what about Mary’s parents Anne and Joachim later in Nazareth?
And what of the shepherds? They were traditionally regarded as marginal members of society and the Angels appeared to them first! There would have likely been older shepherds training the younger ones among the group who went to see Jesus! I like to think that those locally in Bethlehem respected them more after that!
We know that the Magi were a different strata of society. They were wise, knowledgeable and wealthy, and likely to be older members of society as they had the knowledge and confidence to undertake a difficult, arduous journey and take gifts to Jesus. Again, they are traditionally depicted as three men, but there may have been younger disciples, and perhaps some women, alongside their servants in their travelling group. They were from other countries and beliefs, (and in a different way outsiders), but the Nativity story is one of the coming together of different, unexpected, diverse groups to witness Christ’s birth.
We understand Jesus was presented in the Temple forty days after birth. Simeon and Anna are both older people waiting for the Messiah. They pick out Jesus, Mary and Joseph from what was likely a queue amidst a lot of other busy, noisy Temple activities. Simeon’s words of recognition and blessing and Anna’s prophecy and thanks are a powerful and prophetic part of the Nativity narrative from older people.
The timings of the arrival of the Magi, the subsequent flight of the Holy Family to escape the massacre of baby boys, and then their return to Nazareth are unclear. But there are a lot of the parts of the story that we do not know about! But it seems to me there will have been many people who formed part of that story to support the Family in those early years that we do not know about, and it is very likely some of those were older people – like us….

Food: is it Important in our Memories of Family and Parish?

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On my way back from a recent Growing Old Gracefully related meeting I serendipitously listened to a Radio 4 Food programme called: “What’s so Special about the Food our Grandmothers Cook?” It recounted some of the tasty and not so tasty meals grandchildren had experienced from grandmothers. The programme reflected the diversity of food: Italian grandmothers cooking fresh pasta every day and a Colombian elder talking about a traditional soup learned from another older woman many years ago. These were both traditional recipes that these women were passing on to others.

It got me thinking: What are our traditional recipes? And do those of us grandparents pass on recipes to future generations? In my family it is more likely grandfathers passing on recipes as my children (now adult) remember the food their grandfather cooked when we went to stay. He was the main cook and his roasts, lasagne, shepherd’s pie and trifles were enjoyed by all of us!

We are a multicultural society and many of us now eat a range of international foods. In our family we may eat a traditional “roast and two veg.” and apple crumble. We also love curry, tandoori, jerk chicken, pasta and pizza. Some of the family are vegan. I was born in Scotland and the next generation of my own family are of Indian, African, Colombian, as well as English and Scottish origin and those cuisines are now part of our family tradition. One of my daughter’s in law wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t mention her Cornish background. My Yorkshire son–in-law’s signature dish is a seafood paella. He and my sons and daughter are all good cooks.

This programme was about the nurturing influence of grandmothers through their cooking. I only had one grandparent living when I was born and when I was a child she was a widow living with an aunt. Meals were very formal and as young children when we went to stay, (we lived in Scotland and she was in Kent), we were discouraged by my great great aunt from talking at meals unless spoken to. I slept in a little bed in Granny’s room and my favourite time was during her late night cup of tea I would wake up and be offered a biscuit and travel sweet from a tin. Luxury! And this was my talking time with Granny. So it was not her cooking I recalled, ( which apparently was limited, as is mine) but those sweets, and the other treats like going daily to a cafe for lemonade and a cake. With my own limited culinary talent it is more likely the trips out to eat that my grandchildren may remember: pizza and icecreams! It became a tradition while our cheap, local, much loved French Bistro was open that we took our sons,daughters and grandchildren out for supper on Christmas Eve. And in January I take them to the local pantomime with bags of sweets and ice creams.This has become part of our tradition.

I know of one grandmother who has extended family round once a week for an evening meal. I am full of admiration. Her husband with dementia is now in a care home and she goes every evening to feed him his evening meal. Food has always played an important social part in their lives.

Food in parishes is important. The Eucharist is the centre of Catholic life. Food in the parish hall is another important way parishioners meet each other and preserve and build on parish relationships. In our parish tea and coffee after Sunday Mass is attended by 30 or 40 parishioners regularly. It is (hopefully) a welcoming place for new parishioners and a social occasion for all ages keeping in touch with each other in the parish, particularly important as we no longer have our own parish priest and share with a larger neighbouring parish. Our parish hold an annual Seder (Passover) Meal. Every year large numbers of people from our and other churches meet to celebrate the Passover Meal, eating the traditional foods and drink of our Jewish sisters and brothers after we listen to the Readings they use about the Passover from the Old Teastament. At Pentecost we have a tradition of sharing food after Mass: traditional recipes from the countries from which our diverse congregation originally come. We have Indian samosas and sweets, Sri Lankan fishcakes, Portuguese soup, French quiche, Italian and Polish cake, English scones and many other dishes: a wonderful communal way to celebrate our diversity at Pentecost.

So, food is important in families and parishes: culinary traditions whether they are home cooked, trips to cafes and restaurants, or family trips to pantomimes or other foody treats. Parish meals and weekly cups of tea and biscuits in the parish hall are also key in forming and nourishing the life of parish communities.

I enjoyed the Radio 4 programme but I have to confess I didn’t hear it all…I was too busy reminiscing on what was special about the food experiences in my own family and parish. What are your family and food traditions?

Supporter Thelma Laycock shares her poetry

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Thelma Laycock lives in Leeds and has been a supporter of Growing Old Gracefully since it began.
Although she has always written poetry, since retiring from teaching it has become one of the most important aspects of her life.

She has published 4 anthologies of poetry and has had work in various magazines and anthologies. Some poems have been translated into Hebrew, Italian and Romanian.
During the 1990s she worked as a volunteer on Indian Reservations in South Dakota and Arizona. The poem Sun Dance at Rosebud draws on that experience

Entering San Francisco 2010

Singing we cross the red bridge,
seeing the Bay stretched out before us
unusually clear and beautiful,
(yet Alcatraz blinks its star of death);
under an old enchantment
paunchy men with pony-tails
and white-haired women dance,
I outdance them all,
no pain in my knees now,
scattering flowers from my hair.

Shadow on the grass

My mother’s shadow wakes me
from chasing words and reverie
her head and shoulders exactly,
starting to move into her old age,
my mother’s shadow wakes me
from chasing words and reverie
not my mother’s shadow but me.

Sun Dance at Rosebud
(for the Indian children)

I missed the Sun Dance –
not given the invitation
and let down by acquaintances,
I missed it.
For me no eagle flew in
low over the hills to bless the dance.
I saw no warriors with long black hair
nor girls in white buckskin dresses;
no dance circle nor piercing at the sacred tree.
Yet my days were blessed;
for though my skin is very white
and my hair as blonde as Custer’s,
you loved me.
I had my own piercing that summer
as I left you playing,
dancing in the sun.

A natural end – can a frank discussion of dying feel helpful?

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As we age, or as our health deteriorates, we can make plans for what treatments we would wish to avoid or where we would like to be cared for.  In a recent edition of The Tablet (26th May 2018),  a palliative medicine pioneer explains that it’s often a surprise to patients and families that a frank discussion of dying can feel so helpful.

When I was working for MHA, a key part of the work of the Chaplaincy team in MHA Care Homes and Independent Living communities was the development of “The Final Lap” – a programme to train staff to support residents and their families as they explore what the last days of life will mean for them.  My initial reaction at the time was shock, and the thought came to me “who wants to think about this?”.  I came to realise this is my own fear talking, my own denial about a process that is as natural as birth.  What I came to understand is that it it possible to respond to planning our dying in a positive and creative way.  “The Final Lap” philosophy is based on 3 key principles:

  1. Create a culture that faces the reality of death openly, as part of human life, and to deliver support that makes it a more positive experience for everyone.
  2. Different people have different ideas about what makes a ‘good death’, so preparation and planning based around the individual’s wishes are important.
  3. Supporting someone who is dying can be difficult, but it can also be very rewarding.  Final Lap training will help staff identify and address their support needs more effectively.

The Tablet article tells the true story of Ignatio, a man who is coming to the end of his life and finds relief and freedom in being able to talk about what he would like and, importantly, not like as part of his Advance Care Planning.  The full article is behind a paywall here , and details about the author, Kathryn Mannix, and her latest book can be read here .

Our parishes have an important role in helping us ‘pack for the journey’.  The Church offers hope and comfort because it is rooted in the belief that God made us to enjoy eternal life with Him.  We are blessed with some special prayers and sacraments that give meaning to sickness and death.

Growing Old Grace-fully are thinking about offering a short session to parish groups on planning your Catholic funeral.  This session will also offer the opportunity for people to start to explore some of the deeper questions and considerations for a parish in helping people think about their own end of life wishes.  Is this something you think your parish might be interested in?  Please get in touch with Rachel at growing.old.gracefully@dioceseofleeds.org.uk or call 07702 255142 for a chat.

Rachel Walker, Project Co-ordinator

Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds

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Together for the Common Good have spotlighted a Channel 4 TV programme entitled ‘Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds’ which explored how bringing those born in the early 1930s with those born in 2013 together benefited not only the residents, but also the children who came to visit them.  St Monica Trust, with their roots in the High Anglican tradition, saw an opportunity to work with Channel 4 and devise a model for care homes that brought together the oldest and youngest in society.

Ten four-year-olds and eleven people in their late eighties were brought together for a six week experiment in a new nursery within St Monica’s retirement community in Bristol. Inspired by a similar scheme set up 25 years ago in the US, this was an inter-generational experiment designed to measure the impact on the health and happiness of older people.

If you didn’t see the programme when it was broadcast, it’s well worth watching on Channel 4’s catch-up  Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds’ .  You can read more about it here including what happened after the film crew left.

Spring Pilgrimage in North Wales

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I have never seen so many wild primroses, got too hot in April by the sea in the UK, been blessed in water from 6th century St Seiriol’s Well and seen a circle of yew trees nearly 3,000 years old!

 

I was staying at Noddfa, a retreat centre in North Wales which I visit every year. I was on a pilgrimage following some of the Celtic saints in the area. We were mostly older people, helping each other down stone steps and up a steep Bronze Age grass burial mound where, “latterly” (i.e. over a 1000 years ago), some of the Celtic saints are also buried. As I get older I find it important to try and learn new things and be invigorated, as creation around us is growing and renewing after the winter.

 

We began and ended each day with Celtic prayer and music. We read about the “living water” that Jesus spoke of to the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn.4:10). Then we went to Anglesey to Penmon Priory, to the Well, Spring and 6th century stone outline of St Seiriol’s Cell. He was a hermit but people flocked to him to be blessed and healed in the water from the Well. There is an enclosed stone platform around clear water, and this was where I saw thousands of primroses in the grave yard of the mediaeval priory built by the Well.

 

Another day we went to Gwytherin, the site of St Winefride’s (Gwenffrewi), 7th century burial place. She was associated with Holywell, near Flint, where many visit. It is known as the Lourdes of Wales. We did not go there but to the site of the monastery where she lived and in a monastic community.There are four yew trees at the place, nearly 3,000 years old which probably were planted by Druids for their gatherings. The Christians later moved on to the site. Under the current church was the wooden monastic community where St Winefride and others lived, next to the ancient burial mound. It had a wooden church on top of the Bronze Age mound in Winefride’s day.

 

There is no longer evidence of these wooden structures. St Winefride’s body was supposedly removed to Shrewsbury by a monk in the 12th century. Did he? Is she still there? The other Saints remain. But for the Celtic Christians, for me and others on the Pilgrimage, it isn’t so much about the testable evidence, but a spirit, and energy, the history, a “knowing” at these holy places… I think older people with life experience, and a long relationship with God and other people, can pray and “know” some of the infinite aspects of God and the Saints, in the mystical tradition espoused by Richard Rohr, Joan Chittister and many others. I visited a number of sites where Celtic Saints have lived, and where they have healed and baptised in springs and wells in places which have been centres of pilgrimage for over a 1,000 years, there is a presence and a knowing that we experienced, shared and take back to our homes and parishes. I feel invigorated with learning and experiencing some new ways of living my faith. Happy Spring time to all!

Pippa Bonner – wife, daughter, mother and grandmother, writer and trustee

Togetherness Builds Community at St Clare’s, Bradford

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I was delighted to be invited to the First Anniversary Celebration of the Parish of St Clare Relax and Craft Group yesterday.

Fr Stephen celebrated Mass and Sr Catherine gave a reflection starting with the Gospel reading – the story of Martha and Mary.  Sr Catherine said the Relax and Craft Group was designed to embrace the gifts of both Mary and Martha.  Members of the group are busy working whilst at the same time creating space to listen to each other.

Sr Catherine went on to thank all the people who’d been involved in the group since it started a year ago including Fr Stephen, the Community Centre Committee and all the people who attend.

Sr Catherine asked everyone to look at the blanket of knitted squares on display, completed by the group.  “You will find out motto ‘Togetherness Builds Community’ attached to it.  We try to live by this as it expresses our guiding ideal.  We constantly need to strengthen the sense of community in our parish and in our city and build bridges not walls.  Working together, we human beings can accomplish amazing good,” she explained.

 

“God has provided among us all the giftedness and talents needed for building up the community,”  Sr Catherine continued.  “The challenge is to go on encouraging and inviting those blessed with talent and ability to share these gifts with others.  Let us continue to Aspire, to Inspire before we Expire.”

 

Here are some of the comments the group members have made to Sr Catherine:

“I feel needed and feel good about myself.”

 “I have never felt so alive.”

 “I feel trusted and can share my innermost feelings.”

 “I enjoy the craft and meeting everyone.”

Thank you for inviting Growing Old Grace-fully to hear your inspiring story.

Rachel Walker, Project Co-ordinator 

Our first Roadshow session at Blessed John Henry Newman Parish

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Rachel Walker from Growing Old Grace-fully  and Rachel Beedle from Catholic Care Older People’s Services led a short session to explore how the parish of Blessed John Henry Newman might continue to celebrate the gifts of older people, as well as support people in some of the challenges that may come along as we age.

The session used the recently published guide “Welcoming Older People – ideas for and from parishes” in considering how we need to cherish the blessings of later life as well as address the challenges, and how parishes have a really important role in being ‘little places of belonging’.

Parish members shared some of the wonderful activities already happening including the thriving Retirement Club which takes place every Monday and has over 100 members.  This led to Rachel Beedle talking with great enthusiasm about some of the smaller Friendship Clubs that Catholic Care are supporting, including the one that meets on a Tuesday afternoon in St Joseph’s Church Hall, Harrogate.

Both Rachels would like to thank both the people who attended for their warm welcome, and also those who made the session possible for their support.

If you are interested in arranging a session on how your parish can continue to be a ‘little place of belonging’ for older people, please contact Rachel on 07702 255142.  If you would like to know more about Friendship Groups, and other groups for older people in our Diocese supported by Catholic Care, please call 0113 388 5400 or email info@catholic-care.org.uk .