Seems like I should leave a warning before I spiral off into something more personal, which I usually just avoid doing, but the part below isn’t a comfortable subject for lots of people, so feel free to skip down to the perfume review of Cartier Les Heures below it.
This last weekend I went through hospice training. I have another session this weekend for 11th Hour training, which is to train people to be at the bedside of someone who is actively, imminently dying so they don’t have to be alone – because they don’t have anyone or their family member just needs a break.
For all of my life, if someone had asked me what volunteer activity I would be most likely to do, working in hospice would have been last on the list. I’m not sure when that changed – that I lost most of my fear of death or else just overcame my aversion to the subject or just felt more comfortable with my mortality.
I think it was after my dad died. We all knew he didn’t want to check out in a hospital or wind up in a nursing home, so the DNR was signed without anyone really talking about it. And then he got to come home, but got sick a day later and was actively dying, but he was taken back over to the hospital — I’m not sure why? Because that’s what we thought we were supposed to do. We didn’t want him to die, so we just wouldn’t/couldn’t/didn’t talk, and we never asked him how he wanted to finish unwinding from his body and where. I know he wanted, without him saying it, to check out at home, quietly, with the people he loved. Instead, he wound up back in the hospital. Nobody really told us that he was actively dying, we all just thought he was sick. All of us living hours away from home stayed put. My mom was with him, but got the flu and had to go home, and he died early that next morning before anyone could get back over. It happened 13 years ago, but it still haunts me that he didn’t check out the way I know he wanted to go, and not one one of us was sitting by his bed holding his hand to tell him goodbye and thanks for sharing his huge, sometimes infuriating, wonderful life with us when he took his last breath.
Well, that’s how I got to hospice. They do amazing work in helping people go the way they want and giving the families support and help in honoring those wishes. But that’s not why I’m writing about this, it’s just an explanation because we all have a story for why we wind up where we do. During the training, we did an exercise where we had to envision that we were unwinding from life, we were sitting in the chair beside our bed for probably the last time, we knew we probably wouldn’t have the strength to do it again, and we wanted to write one last letter.
So we all wrote our letter, with lots of sniffling and sobbing and tears. What I found in writing my letter is what most of us would expect. First, I couldn’t write a letter to my kids in that setting because I was not prepared to sob that much in public. But I made a note to myself that I want to write those letters in my own time so they will have them forever. My letter didn’t mention things I had or things I had done, places I had gone, work successes. It was about how much fun my life had been and thanking all the people in my life for sharing their lives, joys and sorrows with me – that it had given all the color and meaning to my life.
But in the midst of all of that emotion while writing that letter, I could smell my life. Those feelings took on smell and shape. I’ve always known that smell is the direct conduit to emotion and memory, but I didn’t know it could work the other way, memory and emotion would bring up smell in my head.
What in the world does all of this have to do with Cartier Les Heures? Not that much directly, but, hey, it’s my blog, I write about what I want to. Partly it is a thought I pass along to treasure the people in your life, for good or ill. It is what you will remember at the end and what brings meaning to the tolling of your days. Make your end of life wishes completely clear to those close to you now, sign a Medical Durable Power of Attorney for someone you trust to make those decisions for you if you can’t. If someone you know is terminal, or they have a terminal family member, don’t avoid them because you don’t know what to say or do – the absolute worst thing that will happen is they will cry or sob around you, and it may make you sob or cry, or you may not know how to comfort them, and you may feel really uncomfortable but, you know? It doesn’t matter. All of us will be experts on loss before we get to the end. Dying can be incredibly isolating and lonely, and there is no wrong thing to say – your presence makes your silence or stumbling absolutely fine.
Okay, end of the PSA portion of this post.
The concept of Cartier Les Heures makes me think of the smell stages of my life – whether that is style or taste or simply my age and emotional makeup at the time. When you start sniffing them, you can keep drawing those same comparisons of time passing, but that the scent you have passed through will always remain a part of you, even if it’s just the memory in your head.
Cartier Les Heures X Folle has notes of red currant, pink pepper, grenadine, blueberry, black currant, ivy, violet, boxwood, shiso and aldehydes. When I read that list of notes, I thought, Cartier? Seriously? Fruity ivy and trees? This is for “The Mad Hour.”
Before I go on, Denyse did a whole series of posts on these fragrances and an interview with Mathilde Laurent, who created them, and you really should go read the whole thing. Very instructive.
This really is the whole fruit experience with joy and zest. I’d think of this as my late teens and early 20s perfume. Not that I wouldn’t wear it now, but that is the period of my life that this encompasses – mad, irrational, joyous, thoughtless sometimes, illogical, sweet, naive, innocent. It’s absolutely fruity, but not in that sweet, killmenow way, though it certainly does not avoid the inherent sweetness that you do get with fruit. It just brings along the rest of the fruit bouquet to keep it from being linear. It’s easy to love, and it completely fits the description, The Mad Hour. At the end, it rest in a soft bed of mad green sweetness that lets you recall how it all began, but leaves you separate and beyond that time.
Cartier Les Heures XII, Les Mysterieuse, is going to be the runaway bestseller from this fragrance collection. Patchouli, juniper, coriander, jasmine, elemi, nutmeg, incense. This is the mysterious hour. All the material says XII, the 12th hour, but the bottle I have says IIX, the 8th hour. I think it would be the 12th hour, it smells like that mystical period in your life when you come closer to the end. The contemplative scent that is full of comfort, but it won’t sit easy all the time. The patchouli starts big, softens, letting all of that gorgeous incense roll in, but the patchouli continuously stirs up the other notes and makes them fuller, richer, bigger because they are infused with life. This is a beautiful, warm woody incense.
Thank you for a very thought-provoking post. In this culture, we don’t remember that death and dying are still an important part of life and living.
Now, that XIII sounds pretty amazing. Juniper? Oh yes, please put me in the draw. Thank you!
I am so excited to try all of the new Cartier scents are the great reviews here, particularly XIII. So…I would love to be entered in the drawing!
This is a really beautiful post, death is such a personal and emotive subject but not at all out of place on this blog. I really hope yur volunteer work goes well, it takes someone with strong character to play that type of role 🙂
Patty,
An inspiration to me and obviously to all of us reading about this beautiful endeavor. You will be wonderfully supportive.
Please enter me in the drawing.
Thank you.
that was really brave of you to write about such a personal experience. my grandmother died 10 yrs ago from cancer and it was incredibly sad…
i really like the red currants, i used to eat them a lot as a kid, and i love the notes in the perfume- please consider me as well.
Hi, please enter me into the drawing as well. You know, even with a “recession” they all keep putting out so many fragrances (I can’t keep up)!
Beautiful, loving post Patty.
And thank you for that reminder to us all to:
“Make your end of life wishes completely clear to those close to you now, sign a Medical Durable Power of Attorney for someone you trust to make those decisions for you if you can’t.”
I’d add to that, sign your advanced directives that your primary care provider probably has for you. That would include things like a DNR.
~Trish
Les Mysterieuse sounds a lot like Michael for Men, which has elemi, coriander, and incense in addition to bucketloads of patchouli. Of course, M4M doesn’t have any jasmine, and it also has bucketloads of suede, so probably they’re not that much alike. I suppose I’ll have to hunt the Cartier down and see for myself. You certainly have a way of making it sound irresistible, at any rate.
Hi Patty, thank you for your hospice story, a touching read. Please do enter me in the draw.
You are obviously a very caring person to decide to do hospice work. The impending death of a loved one is so frightening and confusing, and I’ve found that hospice workers helped to give some order to the death process for the family as well as the person dying. Thank you for taking on the task of guiding people.
I’d love to be entered into the drawing too please.
My Matt is looking in to doing this – has been thinking about it, on and off, for over a year. We both do ‘good deeds’ type jobs, but I guess there’s always room for more and it’s a calling for him, and like you, he’ll be fantastic at it.
Love to you, twinkle toes.
Oh, that’s wonderful. I do think hospice picks you, and I don’t know why. I’m certain Matt will be amazing at it. xo
Oooh, I am intrigued by this line, so please enter me in the drawing! thank you.
Will do, Elizabeth!
These sound lvely. As for hospice . . . these folks are wonderful . The dedication and caring they provide is beautiful and so very needed, . My mothers team, when she passed were so beneficial to the process. . . . I think it must be a special person who can give so much to others. Makes me stop and think about whether I possess the sort of strength to join myself . . .G
I don’t really think of it as special. Maybe just the ability to compartmentalize and be really good about self-care. Those who can’t do that do leave direct hospice care, they have to. I think I won’t really know where I fall until I try it.
Patty–it’s so wonderful that you’re doing volunteer work at all let alone something that could be so emotionally draining. Thanks also for sharing your personal story. Good luck with the volunteer work.
I do have the time now. And I’ve wanted to do it forever, but kids and a really demanding career left me no time at all. So I’m pretty excited about it!
Patty, It is so interesting to follow the changing currents of your life. Thanks for sharing.
I just lost my Mom (and best friend). I was told her death was “good”, because she basically dropped in her tracks and was gone. But I feel there is something to be said for having time to say “goodbye”. It sounds like you will be doing something really worthwhile.
Blessings and such
Imagine being me. 🙂 I did decide against the mountain ascent for practical reasons. After much discussion, research, frank assessment – some old injuries I have and my stunning fear of edges will probably keep me off of Denali. My lungs may or may not be robust enough to take that kind of altitude, but age becomes a serious factor if you haven’t conditioned over years to spend limited amounts of time at that sort of altitude.
I am so sorry about your mom, Cynthia. I’m sending you a virtual hug.
It’s hard to figure out which way to go is best. I think I really want that time to say goodbye, even if it’s a day or a couple of hours, but I don’t want the extended illness that usually comes with. Hospice does do a great job of keeping their patients comfortable, so I’m less freaked out about that now.
Patty, you really are a special person.
When I read this post, earlier today, my eyes welled up with tears. My wonderful father passed away 19 years ago. I can’t believe it has been so long since I have felt his hugs and kisses. He was adamant about not going to the hospital, even though we had to admit him a few times. He did get one of his wishes, though. He didn’t want a hospital bed at home either. When he finally acquiesced the hospital bed arrived … but only after he passed, later in the day.
Though we did not use the services of a hospice, I am grateful and feel blessed my dad died surrounded by his children, my mother and an aunt. It was a long night, with many false alarms but we were there holding him and kissing him when he ascended to be with angels … and to watch over me. I feel him all the time.
My best friend of 35 years (at the time) died 4 years ago at the age of 47. She was placed in hospice when her husband finally came out of denial. They were wonderful. They gave us literature to read and had such a gentle way about them. She spent the last 26 days of her life at a hospital and then in hospice (in another wing of same hospital). I was so lucky she ended up being placed in that hospital/hospice as it was only 4 blocks from my home. I spent her last 26 days with her from 8 or 9am until her husband came after work. He was wonderful and paid for a nurse to be there but I wanted her to have a familiar presence with her. Even though she was not conscious for the last 2 weeks I knew she felt me there. I helped her with her seizures, played CDs given to me by a friend who said they were specifically for the dying. They were beautiful. I was strong during the day because I had to be but at night when I’d get home I would collapse. It is so hard to see someone you love go but it is an honor to be there, in my view. I was there when she made her ascent to heaven/universe and even though all the family was there, I was the only one awake and by her to tell her it was OK to go.
Special person, indeed, Patty.
You have no idea how not a special person I am. 🙂 I’m not easy with being viewed that way because I am flawed so deeply on so many levels, and I have lived so selfishly for most of my life. I really fell like I was pulled in to do it, it didn’t come from some place inside of me.
Isn’t it funny how time passes, and it will never seem that long in your head that you’ve had to live without someone you love so much. And I use that in the present tense because I actively still love my dad. That feeling never went to live in some old room for emotions I don’t need or use anymore. What a beautiful way for your dad to go.
Speaking of special people, how completely wonderful of you to spend that time with your friend. How she must have loved you and you her. Sorry, you really teared me up with that. *hugs*
Patty … what an incredibly profound post. Sorry, but I couldn’t focus on the perfume bits, hope you don’t mind, I’ll focus on perfume again next time I’m here, I promise.
I have the deepest respect for you’re desire and ability to show up for hospice work, and for the gift you left for so many to share here. Thank you.
Thanks, Divalano.
I am so impressed.
I’m going to search out the Canadian equivalent of hospice training. It seems to me that many North American’s have a denial and fear-based attitude to death. We should be allowed to pass with dignity and acknowledgement….after all, it’s something we will all do.
I also enjoyed your review of Cartier’s “Les Heures.” I used to wear “Le Must” back in the day. XII sounds particularly lovely;
I do like my patch.
However, no fragrance can equal human goodness and kindness.
Good luck with that, Bev! If you get involved and ever want to talk to someone, hey, just hit the e-mail button on the left.
I think it’s wonderful that you’re doing this..
Thanks, Tom. I’m really uncomfortable with being called wonderful. I’m just not. It’s just something I decided to do.
Wow, that’s a really interesting thing I hadn’t thought of myself volunteering at a hospice. I don’t think I could do it, as I have illness-phobias that would probably render me useless, but kol hakavod to you. I agree that death is a sacred transition and we should all have the opportunity to pass over in as much comfort and grace as possible. I’m not sure how I’ll feel when my parents are dying. Right now I fully accept that it will happen some day, and I feel ready for it, but who knows how I’ll feel when the time comes. I do believe we ultimately all die alone, and I do not feel afraid of dying alone at this point in my life, perhaps I will feel differently later. I fear pain and suffering more than being alone. The most I can hope for is the strength to get through whatever comes.
No need to enter me in the drawing, I’ve already smelled the hours. #12 was my favorite, after I got past the indolic opening. I loved the opening of #13 but then the drydown wasn’t great on me. I don’t think I’ll be buying any at this point but I do appreciate the artistry involved in them.
Yeah, I’m thinking the illness-phobias would be a deal-breaker, but if their mission speaks to you, there are a ton of other areas where people can volunteer.
Like you, I do believe we all die alone at its essence. I also think we live alone too, no matter how many people touch our lives. Most people lose it staring into that void of aloneness that inherent to our nature. I’m okay with it. But having someone alongside you at that transition point to death seems incredibly important.
Woo, Patty! I could spill out my guts to you about my experiences with the death of friends and loved ones, but I believe you captured it perfectly.
Few people want to be there at the end of someone’s life, much less be a stranger volunteering to do so. God bless you for being there.
Oh…and please enter me in the drawing.
Hugs!
I bet you could.
xo P
I’d like to be included in the drawing! Thanks.
Absolutely!
Stick with it; you are doing something holy, mundane, inconvenient, necessary. In the early nineties I did lots of powers of atty; guardianships, etc for folks going into hospice: AIDS before the new meds. My partner volunteered at a residential hospice for 10 years. There was awe and mystery, grief, pain and heart-breaking tenderness. But there was also a lot of hilarity–if you can imagine a 70-year old nun, who also happened to be 6 feet tall, shaking a wooden spoon at someone, saying “You just better be glad I work for God!!” then you’re at the starting point. May it bring much meaning and depth to you.
I will. I don’t fool myself into thinking it’s easy or not without a ton of moments that I’d just as soon not have.
They have a long-time volunteer here that’s been with TDH practically since it was started. With all that experience, she was visiting someone one day, and she offered to do a foot massage. The patient said, why, I can’t do that, I’m diabetic and had both feet amputated years ago. The volunteer fled the room in tears. While she was outside torturing herself for saying the wrong thing, the patient was in her room calling up all of her family and friends, laughing.
I have heard there are a lot of great moments and unexpected ones. Apparently, dying is pretty much like living, you get some really crappy moments with some outstanding ones.
Does your partner still do hospice work?
He’s no longer doing hospice. We moved from Austin to Portland a few years back and he didn’t get back into it. And ten years is a long time!
all the best.
That was quite moving — if difficult to think through. I am so terrified of losing my parents that every illness that comes their way brings a persistent knot of fear to my stomach.
My mother is head of the Hospice auxiliary attached to my stepfather’s hospital in NY. Long ago, she worked in a sad little nursing home. I don’t know how she — and you– manage it.
Perfumes are so evocative of times of life. When I smelled vintage Rive Gauche a few months ago, I was suddenly standing in Bloomigdales in NY, age 17, with my silvery-plum Borghese liptstick on trying hard to be so much more sophisticated than my suburban upbringing.
Please do enter me in the drawing — I would love to try these.
Bless your mom for doing that.
You know, up until my dad died, I couldn’t even think of my parents dying without dissolving into tears. When you have to face the unthinkable, you do wind up living with it uneasily and it becomes an unwanted companion in your life that you will make peace with, but never because you want to.
I’ve appreciated reading your thoughts and those of your commenters. I won’t add anything at this time, but do please put my name in the Cartier samples drawing.
Will do, Gretchen!
I became a Hospice volunteer when I was 17, in Maine, but the experience was so profoundly shaking to me, I stopped volunteering soon after, probably a year later. I think it was just too much for me at that age, especially since I ended up in a training group with the mother and father of two teens I knew who had died in a car accident the year before. I think they were there to channel their grief into something positive, into helping others, but they were both so deeply grieving their own losses, it was impossible for them to really be helpful. And they would just stare at me sometimes with these blank looks, like why is this CHILD here, reminding us of our kids, playing at being helpful?
Anyway, I’m 29 now and am helping an older friend through her dying process. It’s been a balancing act of trying to be there for her as much as she needs me and keeping my own life afloat. Death is strange, because while it is profound and altering for the people involved, the world just keeps going on. I keep having to do the laundry, get my son to soccer practice, make dinner. We have hospice helping us, but they’re pretty useless and frustrating, medical technicians more than family support. I’ve been thinking off-handedly that I might want to volunteer again, and your post actually added a little to my consideration. So thank you! I love reading about scent, but I enjoy how you guys all add a little extra to your blog, give us a story or a little of yourselves. It makes for good reading and gets me thinking.
Wow. I’m surprised they let you. I think it is so commendable that you wanted to do that so young.
Our hospice has a lot of rules about age and how long it has been since you lost someone through death because they do get a lot of people volunteering where it is too fresh, and they are working out their own stuff, which is completely not helpful to the patient or their family or to the volunteer.
IT is a surreal thing. The reality of continuing to live and supporting someone dying. This is what scares me about doing this, letting that bleed over into the joy I have for every bit of life. I think I’ll be fine, but who really knows until you get there?
You know, hospice has lots of places for volunteers in fundraising, etc. So even if you’re not sure you can do direct care now or ever, there’s so many other things you can do that are just as valuable. I know if I find direct care to be too hard, I’ll just retract and find other ways to support what they are doing.
Since living in CA and having direct interaction with Hospice, I’m coming to realize how much the program differs, depending on where it in. In CA, hospice does in-home nursing care, handles medical equipment and medicine, etc. In Maine, we just did counseling and family support, and weren’t allowed to handle medications or do any direct nursing. Which is probably why my mom’s friend, the lady who ran the local hospice training, let me train. So when I did have a client, my work was just spending the afternoon playing cards with an 80-year-old cancer patient, while his loved ones were able to get out and do chores and handle their lives. I think that kind of support is so much more helpful than the support we’re receiving out here. The hospice people we see daily are mostly technicians and they don’t even seem very comfortable in the dying room. They just seem very distracted with protocol. And they seldom speak with Georgia, my friend, though she is perfectly lucid and capable of understanding them.
SIGH.
Anyway, I commend you for wanting to give your time to helping people. I think I failed to be very coherent about how I feel about dying in the first comment…I just think that it’s as amazing and awe-inspiring as birth, and I watch my friend die and see her struggle with how big it is and how much she wishes to just share the feelings she has and experiences, because they’re so profound and changing. But no matter how much we support, people die on their own, they go through that, inside their bodies, on their own. So our lives go on, with all our daily rituals and chores, while they go through this amazing experience. It’s just such a strange thing, and it makes me sad that dying is so often relegated to institutional spaces, because it should be treated like something profound and moving. I think being a hospice volunteer would enrich a person’s life, would only make the daily things they love and celebrate all the more beautiful.
Ahaha, sorry. I got all serious! I think you’re lovely! I wish you luck with your work.
Denver Hospice does both. I think it may depend on the state and may depend on the mission. All hospices are set up differently. TDH does both medical care through nurses/cnas and work with the patient and family with social workers and chaplains. The volunteers are the respite care, which is a huge piece of TDH. But they make the assessment of need first because what families need and what is appropriate varies wildly.
They spent a lot of time with us on interaction – to be sure we realize we are there for the patient, not the family, though what we do helps them. To always realize that even if the patient is quite ill and seems to be out of it, that hearing is the last to go and to always keep talking to them.
I think it would be weird. Much like a new parent or someone in love, unless you are in that place with them emotionally, it is impossible to really get what they are feeling and keep on cleaning toilets. We refer to it as the sacred space. Doesn’t matter if someone is religious or not – that time in preparing to die, for those that get notice – is profound, and all we can do is respect it.
I actually found it beautiful that you related a collection of perfume (such a transient thing) called The Hours with your thoughts about mortality and dying. And while I admire what you’re now doing, I also want to say that it’s probably impossible to feel like you did a good job of helping someone you love to die. My mother died in hospice care at home almost two years ago, with help from both my brother and me, and while I have no regrets about making the choice to do that, I am still haunted by various difficult decisions and compromises we had to make. I hope your work brings you peace.
No, I don’t think anyone ever feels great about it or completely at peace – maybe they do? – but I think there’s a peace in letting someone go out without tubes and CPR and extreme measures and letting them make little choices when they wind up having so few.
I applaud your choice both to be a hospice volunteer, and to write about here. I fervently hope, though, that the training covers all the bases: my grandmother chose to die at home with, my mother (an Army-trained RN) and a hospice worker to look after her. Unfortunately her death was neither quick nor easy; I ended up having to shepherd my little brother outside the house for 2 hours because it was so bad, and helping with the clean up afterwards was, if I’m lucky, the most nauseating thing I’ll ever have to do.
That aside, I agre that the single most important thing that a person can do is to plan for their own end, lest it be left to family memebers to quarrel over, or CPR teams to wrest from you.
All hospices are not created equal. The one I’m volunteering for is excellent, as is their training. The material they give to the families to prepare them for what to expect physically, emotionally is voluminous. They give it to all employees and volunteers as well so they know what to expect. Most volunteers, unless they go through the 11th hour training, don’t attend deaths, unless it just happens while they are there reading and sitting with the patient. Our hospice does a lot of work with restless patients who can’t settle. Sometimes you can’t help at all, you just have to be there and get through it.
End of life has some pretty weird things going on, restlessness. It’s not always pretty and peaceful, and sometimes it can take a long time, and it is hard on families, no matter how much they want to be there and do it. Sometimes it can be impossible and the person has to go into a care facility, and families should never feel guilty about doing what they have to.
Patty, my Mom died without me getting a chance to even say goodbye. She was in a hospital in NYC and I was in Chicago,. I was supposed to come and help her after she got out. ( My brother lived in NY). The day before she was supposed to come home she had a heart attack and died and I felt guilty for years ( and still do sometime) thinking I should have been there. You are right, treasure the time.
Also, pleaseenter me in the drawing. Thanks
Oh, I am so sorry. Even though you know you have no reason to feel guilty, you fight it. I think it’s more regret that you wish it had been different so you could have said goodbye.
I believe that thinking about something in our lives that moved us tremendously opens us up emotionally in a general way, to everything. I think this is certainly the case here. Thinking about your father and hospices caused you to write in a way that conveyed such tremendous emotion with such impact and precision! This even flowed over to your writing about Les Heures. I loved the image of patchouli making the other notes seem fuller and richer because they were infused with life. I remember now that when you wrote about Muguet Blanc by VCA the same thing happened, and the image of that tree made me shiver. I wanted to write and thank you then and I am sorry that I did not, so please let me do it now…..Thank you, Patty.
Absolutely. When you open up your heart and share the joys and hurts, it makes connections with other things in ways you’re sometimes aware of and sometimes not.
Hey, you’re welcome.
You jerk, why did you have to go and write something so beautiful? I can’t believe it but I think I might prefer some Botalk to this……I’m going upstairs to cry in my shower.
Please enter me in the drawing.
(And of course you must know that any and all name calling is done completely tongue-in-cheek!);)
I’ll cheer you up later with some Lipo-talk next week. 🙂 Then you can contemplate how such a shallow, vain person can co-exist peacefully with this one in the same body. I wonder the same thing too. 🙂 If it were for all the shallows, I always say, how would I ever find any depth?
Sorry about making you cry. If it helps, I did quite a bit of crying just writing that about my dad dying alone. It touches a well of sadness that no time will heal because we can’t undo it. All we can do is be crystal about our own wishes and then threaten (as I shamelessly did) your children with hauntings and all if they shove me in a nursing home to die.
This posting brought out many tears. This maybe is a good time of year for it, autumnal, the change of season, the leaves falling from the trees. I understand many cultures celebrate this by lighting candles through the night at this time of year to welcome the spirits of their dead family and friends and visit with them and remember and honour them.
Thank you if I’m in the draw, mostly I just wanted to comment on how moving everyone’s comments are.
Dia des la Muertos (I probably botched the spelling) is my favorite days. That whole All Souls, All Saints and dAy of the Dead time at the end of October is pretty moving.
We’re doing 11th Hour Training on Halloween.
I believe only special people feel drawn to Hospice work so you obviously are one of the chosen. Glad you’ve decided to pursue this path since you are feeling the call and I wish you well. Perhaps your love of scents will be your “gift” to those who may find it as comforting as music.
My father died in September in the hospital but under the direction of Hospice. We all had a chance to say goodbye and it was on my shift when he passed. I have taken great comfort in that these past weeks but still miss him dearly. We are ever so grateful for the staff who was with us those during those few days.
Not only did that experience cement my thinking of always making my last wishes known (which my parents had done with a living will) but also my funeral arrangements. That includes music and readings. Making selections was difficult as we weighed what Dad would have wanted and what would comfort us. That convinced me to make those decisions myself to ease the burden on my husband and sons.
I love the idea of writing a letter and think that’s something I need to consider.
And yes, please enter me in the drawing. These sound gorgeous.
I am so sorry to hear about your dad. Time eases the loss, but it truly does change you forever.
Not so sure that I’ve been chosen as much as some meddling old fart of a dad is maneuvering. He’s done a lot of that since he died, which we all figure out when we compare notes. He left all these things through his life, things he’d say to us individually, that wound up eventually pushing us all in directions, after his death, that surprised us.
Yeah, making choices ahead of time so people know what you want is really helpful. I don’t want my family making ridiculous sentimental choices when what I really want is them to play Nina Simone’s Feeling Good. They will be allowed one run-through of Amazing Grace, but that’s as sad as the music can get and just briefly.
I need to write that down, yes!
Lovely post. I really respect what you are doing and know that it can be hard to open up at times, but look at all the love and support on here, its wonderfull! I think the perfumes tie in wonderfully to what you wrote. The hours of your life…Thank you for sharing.
enter me in the draw please
Absolutely Michelle!
Patty, this is such a lovely post. Thank you. My stepmother died 2 weeks ago, as you all probably know by now, suddenly and completely unexpectedly. My sister slept over at the house the night before, next to her bedside, and I think that was the single greatest gift E has ever been given, the opportunity to spend that quiet time with her mom one last time. She died, peacefully, the next afternoon, with my father and her nurse in attendance.
My father’s being here is stressful – but it is also a gift. We have had a very complicated relationship, like so many parent/child relationships, and spending this time with him is giving me the opportunity to see him as a person, rather than my “Hanging Up” type father. I consider this time both a ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and if I open my heart and my psyche it will be a good time for all.
On scent memory, I couldn’t agree more. Yesterday we were driving and chatting about our old neighborhood and, unbidden, the smell of my girl-crush neighbor’s house came roaring back. I was a totally geeky 14yr old and she was incredibly fabulous 18 and Breck Girl as could be. Her mom was Boca Raton just waiting to happen and their whole house smelled like hairspray. So exotic. I was rarely in their house but when I was it was like being in Heaven’s Beauty Salon!o:-)
For a split second I was 14 again. And hairspray was my friend!
Thanks again for such beautiful writing. And those you touch will be forever enriched.
xo >-)
ps. agree on the Medical and Durable POA. Also, folks: get your stuff in order. Death is sort of unpredictable but it is inevitable (at least I think it is). I got lucky with my stepsibs, who are the greatest people on earth. We sorted out their mom’s/my pop’s stuff as a family, with no one trying to ‘get over’ on anyone else – but it could’ve easily gotten ugly, quick. So take care of your survivors by taking care of your business.
I think for most people, that’s what they want. As hard as it is to watch someone die, just being there, especially a parent, while they take their last breath, the person that was there when you took your first breathe, means everything.
I do think you have a blessing having your dad living with you, and it is a huge blessing for him having you. At least he can’t hang up on you now. 🙂 It took me years to reach an easy peace with my dad. Always loved him, didn’t understand him. Some of the questions I’d ask him, he gave me the wrong answer, and I had to live with those answers. Eventually, I knew they were the right answers, I just didn’t have the wisdom to see it.
LIving life with your heart wide open is hard. That’s what I’m trying to do, but you have to work constantly to stop closing up, breathing through the places that are so uncomfortable where you just want to hide. But it’s better. I never want react to life’s pain by shutting life out. I want to open up more. We get that choice, which is really a cool thing.
Embracing it all – the good and the bad – is pretty powerful medicine for the soul.
Hi Patty,
Thank you for the contemplative post, I know it is a sensitive subject for some but one that I feel needs to be discussed more often!
Please enter me in the draw.
Thanks, Aimee!
Lovely post Patty. My dad died 25 years ago and I still see him out of the corner of my eye or smell something that will vividly bring him back to me. I am always glad when this happens! I wish my kids had gotten to know him.
You will be a wonderful hospice worker.
Drawing please.
Thanks, Janet. I have my doubts about lots of things, but sometimes you just do it and figure it out. 🙂
Hospice volunteers are our angels. Actually, this post did make me uncomfortable. Only because it made me look into a place where we all end up, sooner or later. I like to delude myself that I, and everyone I love, are immortal. But, then you hear that a younger relative has 2 weeks to live, and, well, you know..
Please enter me in the drawing, Patty.
I know, and sorry. But the one thing I’m finding – looking in that place makes me look around me with a new wonder and appreciation for how temporary this all is and how much more I need to appreciate and connect for the people that are traveling along with me on this short trip.
Wow. What a stunning post, and a very helpful review of the two Cartiers—some of the reviews on other sites haven’t given me as clear of an impression of the perfumes, for this series. This year, I’ve done too much thinking about death. My sister is not well, and death seems to be the elephant in the room (and though we do not talk about it, I simply can’t stop myself from staring at it). Perfume has been one of my escapes from morbid thoughts. It’s been a heavy year, and I’ve found myself loving light, airy and happy perfumes, though sometimes, the comfort of a dark and warm perfume is excellent, too. I avoid the perfumes that people describe as ‘funereal’ (Apres L’Ondee comes to mind). Is the 12th Hour funereal? Is it sad?
And blessings to you for volunteering at Hospice. My grandfather died at home with us, with their support. On the morning that he would die, when his breathe changed, the Hospice caregiver told my grandmother that it was coming. My grandmother held his hand and told him their life story. He took his last breath as she finished the story, arriving at that moment. It sounds like a sentimental wisetale, but it’s true, and it’s how it happened. I think he was able to let go at the house in a way he wouldn’t have at the hospital. And the hospice really helped us let go, too. It’s only natural when someone you love is dying, to want them to fight and hang on. Hospice helped us let him go.
I think the Cartiers are tough to review. They strike me as having a very artistic view, so you’re pulling from what they smell like to interpreting what you get from them. Some things are easier, but you don’t what to give shortshrift to the artistic side by purely talking about how they smell. Maybe I shouldn’t, but i tend to respect the perfumer’s vision of what they were doing when they created. Sometimes it’s just to make something that smells good, and that’s great too!
Im sorry about your sister. Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is to talk about the unimaginable. Sometime if you can voice what you can’t even think of, it takes away some of the dark power.
That is a beautiful store about your grandfather. So many people are waiting at the end for something — a person to arrive, for someone to tell them it’s okay to go, something. Forgiveness, to forgive.
Oh, I didn’t answer, is it funereal, the XII? No. It is contemplative, but the spices warm it up, and the patch gives it something more so it doesn’t seem wispy or unsubstantial. I think of Apres L’Ondee of living mostly in the next world, that’s why it seems funereal to me. NOt because it is dead or anything, but just that it is transient and transparent, and I can’t hang onto it.
Many blessings to you, Patty, for doing this. My grandmother was able to go peacefully (from cancer) and at home due both to the brief training we the family were given and to the volunteers who helped us along the way. We were all in the house when she died at some wee hour of the morning, with someone at her bedside. I couldn’t ask for a better passing. I only hope that we can do as well for whoever is next.
On more mundane topics, the Cartier series has fascinated me — will they all be good, or even interesting? XIII has the most promising notes so far, but one can’t judge until actually smelling. At least it gives me something to wonder about when work is dull.
I’m so happy your grandmother and her family got that. Death is hard work, and it is really beautiful when it can be done as the person wished.
You know, I think both. They are good and they are interesting. I don’t think anyone will love or need them all, but I’m enjoying each one as I discover it. They are so different, but the them of the Hours ties them together. But people can interpret that how they wish. Hours of the day, hours of your life? Seasons, phases, emotions? I just like that they figured out their main focus, but then left us all room to smell and figure it out. It’s like art.
Thank you for that post. I feel like this is a turning point for me. This is the first year I have attended more funerals than weddings and deaths and births are about neck and neck. I need to start making sure that I ask all those questions and really listen to all those stories before it’s too late and, more importantly, give back to those I love while they are still there to give to. And I would love to be entered in the draw to find a new love to share with them (not that most of them are interested!).
You are very welcome. Don’t you just hate it when your events start turning like that? I haven’t been to a wedding in a really long time. The funerals are piling up.
Beautiful post. I’ve worked in elderly care for a time, and have sat hospice shifts/wakes as well. They were both my favourite shifts and my most difficult ones: I’d always be glad to have ample time for one patient, really get to know them end their preferences and generally be the oil on the cogs for those important last moments between patient and family – on the other hand, well… it’s still death. In the end I quit it because I couldn’t balance it out emotionally any longer and could not be the comfort/strength I had to be. I admire anyone who volunteers at a hospice, though you really do need to be able to let off steam and acknowledge your own feelings once in a while to keep it up.
Seems so banal to mention perfume now – but I’d love to be entered in the draw. :”>
Bless you for doing it. I’m not sure that many people can do it for long periods of time, and I know lots of people that take breaks or they move out of direct care so they can still help, but emotionally they just can’t keep doing direct care anymore.
I’m not sure how I’ll get the balance. I have a pretty good psychologicaly makeup for compartmentalization, but I don’t think you really know until you do it jsut how long you’ll be able to do it. Denver Hospice encourages everyone to us the social workers and chaplains on staff as needed to talk to about what’s going on with them. I know the Care Center does a weekly memorial service for all the patients that died that week. I think people can try and maintain a barrier to some degree, but all of that grief and loss of others and the attachment you get to people will get through. We are just not emotionally impermeable.
Hi, Patty. Thanks for writing about this. Hospice can be a haven in tough times, a replacement for the extended families we all used to have. Thanks for doing it!
And, of course, please enter me in the draw. These Hours certainly sound interesting.
Absolutely, Fernando.
the Hours are interesting! I deliberately am only smelling the ones I’m reviewing, so it gives me a chance to unfurl them. I used to rush into big collections and just smell them all in one day, then try and sort them out.
Bless you, Patty. My grandmother is dying and the hospice workers who give my family respite during this strange, spiraling process are angels. *HUGS*
I am so glad you have them. I cannot imagine what it is like for family members, sometimes just one or two of them, who are doing round-the-clock care, and just being able to get out for a few hours and feel anything approaching normal again has to be a relief. I’m amazed by the nurses, cnas, chaplains and social workers in hospice. They work with so many varied families and family systems and beliefs and wishes and seem to help them all somehow.
*HUGS* back to you and your family.
Wow. Patty, what a wonderful thing to do. Inspires me to get out there and do something, anything, as a volunteer. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Volunteering is a great thing, no matter where you do it. And the cliche is absolutely true — you will always get back more than you ever give.
Beautiful post Patty. We lost a family member a little over a year ago. He was quite ill, although his doctors did not expect him to die. But he did, very suddenly, and I was overwhelmed by sadness and guilt over the fact that he died alone. These feelings have gradually subsided, but grief is such a long and complex process.
I agree completely with Shelley who commented on the poignancy of the connection between the a post about hospice and The Hours. I would love to be entered in the drawing.
I’m sorry, Melissa, it is a hard thing to get beyond, and it takes a long time. I don’t think we ever really get beyond grief. It lessens in sharpness so we can breathe. I know my dad’s grief wore him out. He came from a big family, and 10 of his 12 brothers and sisters died before him, and all of his closest friends and you could see the accumulated loss in him.
What’s the Dylan song? Just when you think you’ve lost everything, you find out you can lose a little bit more. That always reminds me of him.
Hospice and The Hours went together in my head. I don’t think I could have written about hospice without the relation in my mind to this perfume collection.
Hello,
I am very shy so even if I read the blog everyday ,I’m always holding back and not posting but this post really it’s moving and I wanted to say thank you very much.You know, I am a firm believer in the KINDNESS OF STRANGERS ,for me that shows the divinity in all of us and makes me believe this is a life that is worth living if only because you get this wonderful glimpses of “GOOD” in capital letters.
So thank you again and please enter me in the draw.
Lorena.
Welcome, Lorena, and so glad you commented. I believe, like you do, that it is in doing something for someone you don’t know that you really see what life means. That you wind up getting so much back never occurred to me.
A very beautiful post Patty. I teach Healing Therapy (an umbrella of various energy medicine modalities) at our local Catholic Health Initiatives hospital – actually I think their headquarters are in Colorado. It was one of their grief counselors who got me into it, and there are several wonderful techniques used to ease the transition. I am passionate about Hospice and about educating people about what should/could be a very beautiful and wonderful experience. We in the West have attached such darkness to the process and have a very unhealthy avoidance of the issue. Congratulations to you for your work and yes, for writing about it in association with perfume.
Please feel free to email if you would like more information.
Oh yes, I’d love to be entered in the draw – I’m a huge fan of Ms. Laurent.
Oh, bless you for your work. We heard some about that and its use with the dying. I know we have a lot of people in hospice that do Reiki and different types of touch therapy. I’d love to be in touch with you about it. Can you click the contact us to e-mail me? I’m thinking down the line, I may want to explore some of the touch and music therapies too, but I’m waiting just to see where this branch of the river takes me for now.
Be happy to! 🙂
Let’s hope then this comment brings me closer to Cartier samples. 🙂
And it will!
My grandfather passed away in 1998 and the last time I saw him alive, he was hooked up to a machine with tubes everywhere and he couldn’t speak. We were never close as we didn’t live in the same city/town. My grandmother (on the other side of my family) passed away the following year in 1999. We were never close either, same reason as with my grandfather, and she only spoke Iban while I speak English mainly. Anyway, I was very moved by what you wrote about writing a letter.
When I was about 10 years old, a neighbour was diagnosed with cancer and was told she had weeks, months at the most, to live. We got a call, and my mother said our neighbour wanted to say goodbye to everybody while she still could. I remember she was so beautiful and only in her 30’s with a daughter who was younger than me. I peeked inside and saw the adults sitting around her. I don’t remember if I waved at her or said anything, but I remember she was wearing a scarf and I heard her say she wanted to apologise if she had done anything to hurt anyone.
I sat with her daughter on the patio, don’t remember saying anything but do remember that she wasn’t crying.
Not long after, we heard that she had passed away.
I hope I would be so lucky as to have enough notice before I die, to have enough time to say what I need to say to the people I love.
You know, when I hit publish on this post, I really didn’t know how y’all would react. I was pretty much expecting uncomfortable silence. But we all have loss and sometimes regrets or memories that come with that, and in our society, it’s just not okay to talk about it and to get a little teary, or a lot.
I’m a little torn about how I want to go out. My mom wants to go out in a second so she doesn’t know. I’m much more okay about having an illness that doesn’t go on too long so I can say my goodbyes and just wrap things up, but I don’t really want the illness part of it. Knowing about hospice and pain management gives me a level of comfort that you can go out with little pain if you can make people stop trying to fix what can’t be fixed.
I can’t imagine losing a parent as a young child. They have a children’s grief center at hospice, and they do some amazing work with those kids. None of it is easy, but they find that children, given time and space, find their peace in unusual and beautiful ways.