Hi and welcome to Toward A Better Life. This is your host Kevin Pennell. Think of me as your guide while we travel together, creating more fulfilling, rewarding, and healthier lives. You won’t need much for this trek, just an open mind, spirit, and heart. Toward a Better Life podcast features like-minded people sharing stories, ideas, and activities, on what we can do to generate a Better Life individually and collectively. We’ll be talking with Marty Machia about hospice care and creating a better end of life experience for patient and a better life for the family and those who are close to the patient. This is a subject not often discussed whether because of its sensitive nature or people just prefer not to think about the subject of death and dying. Marty has been a hospice nurse in Vermont for several years and had this to say about hospice.
“Many people ask those of us who work in hospice, ‘How do you do this work?’ ‘It takes a special kind of person.’ People often say to us, ‘How DO we do it, exactly?’ Though being with death and dying CAN be hard — of course — it is also a deep privilege. What could be more meaningful, more intimate, more raw or real, aside from birth, than to be with those who are at end of life? We are given permission to not only glimpse into this intimate world, but often be in the center of it. To be a part of someone’s life story. And to witness this process, an opportunity not given to many. As Ram Dass paints so beautifully and accurately, death brings you up close and personal to the truth.”
So, hospice can certainly be a time to experience deep compassion and limitless love. Join Marty Machia and me now for conversation about Embracing Hospice Care.
