Home  Publications Research Papers Work in Progress To Live, To Love and to Leave a Legacy |
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To Live, To Love and to Leave a Legacy |
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Page 1 of 3 To Live, To Love and To Leave a Legacy | | |
Keywords: public health, halliative hare, arts and health, hulticultural After working in palliative care for over a decade in both developed and developing countries, I came to observe that staff, volunteers, carers and families often describe their time spent with the dying as a “privilege”. This intrigued me, as I felt exactly the same, however it is commonly believed that the general population fear death and hence do not like to be in close proximity to the dying.
In 2007, I began to explore this divide further and informally asked many colleagues, volunteers and carers why they felt
“privileged“. I received similar responses - people felt that when most patients are faced with their own mortality they see the world and those around them in a different way; they prioritize things differently and speak about less mundane topics which offers us a rare opportunity to bare witness and hopefully learn from it.
There was nothing new about this concept that palliative patients have a wisdom to share with others. One of my favourite
books is “Tuesdays with Morrie“, the story of a young man regularly visiting an old man dying and listening to him share his wisdom. However, I realized that in our busy everyday professional roles we rarely take the time to reflect on this “privilege“ and consider what wisdom is being shared with us, let alone share this wisdom with others.
Thus began my journey, which has taken me around the world twice and into the homes, hospices, hospitals, nursing homes and daycare settings of some immensely wise people who entrusted me with their images and stories, in the hope that it would be of benefit to others.
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