![]() Bledsoe suggests asking yourself the following questions: "What am I most afraid of in this situation?” “How did I learn to believe there is not enough (love, approval, etc.) to go around? Are those learned beliefs/feelings really relevant to the current circumstances? Am I willing to identify the old fears and let them pass?” Acknowledge your jealousy: Just recognizing that you're having these feelings opens the door to letting them go.Kerr on one of his last visits.įor Jessica’s mom, Kristen, these visions - and Jessica’s resulting tranquility - helped initiate the process she had been resisting: that of letting go.Here are a few healthy ways to manage your Thirteen-year-old Jessica, dying of a malignant form of bone-based cancer, started having visions of her former dog, Shadow. When children are dying, it is often their beloved, deceased pets that make appearances. Her mother’s pre-death dreams and visions assisted Lisa in her own journey toward acceptance - a key element of processing loss. For her daughter, Lisa, these occurrences grounded her in the knowledge that her parents’ bond was unbreakable. She would call out to him at night and point to his presence during the day, including in moments of full and articulate lucidity. Joan’s recurring dreams and visions helped mend the deep wound left by her husband’s passing months earlier. Kerr cared for, being separated by death after decades of togetherness was simply unfathomable. Barbara was living her passing as a time of love regained, and seeing her comforted brought Robert some peace in the midst of his irredeemable loss.įor the elderly couples Dr. It was a moment of pure wholeness, one that transformed their experience of the dying process. Robert was struck by his wife’s calm demeanor and blissful smile. One day, he inexplicably saw her reaching for the baby son they had lost decades ago, in a brief span of lucid dreaming that echoed Mary’s experience years earlier. I learned about Robert, who was losing Barbara, his wife of 60 years, and was assailed by conflicting feelings of guilt, despair and faith. Kerr’s encounters with his patients and their families confirmed how, in the words of the French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne, “he who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.” I was tasked with instilling more humanity into the remarkable medical intervention this scientific research represented, to put a human face on the statistical data that had already been published in medical journals. It was this collaboration that turned me into a writer. ![]() His agent was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to write in ways that were accessible to the public - something academics are not exactly known for. I was an English professor who was an expert in taking apart the stories others wrote, not in writing them myself. ![]() When he disclosed that he was not getting far with the writing, I offered to help. I couldn’t help but be moved by the work of this doctor and scientist. ![]() He told me about his TEDx talk on the topic, as well as the book project he was working on. Kerr’s property, so we often discussed his work on the dreams and visions of his dying patients. What would medical care look like if all physicians stopped and listened, too? What if, he wondered, patients’ own perceptions at life’s end mattered to their well-being in ways that should not concern just nurses, chaplains and social workers? Kerr, this didn’t seem like cognitive decline. One day, in 2005, a dying patient named Mary had one such vision: She began moving her arms as if rocking a baby, cooing at her child who had died in infancy decades prior. As patients approached death, many had dreams and visions of deceased loved ones who came back to comfort them in their final days.ĭoctors are typically trained to interpret these occurrences as drug-induced or delusional hallucinations that might warrant more medication or downright sedation.īut after seeing the peace and comfort these end-of-life experiences seemed to bring his patients, Dr. But he soon noticed a phenomenon that seasoned nurses were already accustomed to. Kerr was tasked - like any and all physicians - with attending to the physical care of his patients.
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