Translator: berat güven Reviewer: Denise RQ
I was a psychiatric nurse for many, many years,
and nursing was natural for me.
I was one of those kids who is really sensitive
so I couldn't even watch movies
like "Old Yeller," or "Lassie," or anything like that
without completely breaking down and bawling my eyes out.
I had to do those things on my own - watch these movies - just about any movie.
So, I naturally became a nurse.
I was always so sensitive to pain and suffering.
I could feel it in my physical body, It was palpable.
So I wanted to do something in the world
that could help people even in just a little way
to minimize their pain and suffering.
So I went into psychiatric nursing
and after a while,
I was given the opportunity to go into hospice nursing.
Hospice is care for people who are in the last stages of a terminal illness
up until their last breath.
The beautiful thing about hospice
is It allows people to actually go through the process of dying
in their own home,
surrounded by their family, surrounded by the environment
they have been in all their lives
so they do not stuck in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines.
There is a whole team of people that come together
to provide care for people in hospice,
and nurses are part of that team.
As a hospice nurse,
I had the opportunity to go to many homes of different people.
It really felt like I was becoming part of their family
because I was getting to know them, I was getting to know their family,
and they were sharing things with me
at the most vulnerable period of their life.
And I got to be a part of that.
Some of the things I most appreciated about hospice
were not necessarily always the medical procedures -
that's not why I went into nursing to begin with -
it was the human interaction that I had with people.
I would just sit there, and rub their feet,
hold hands, and listen;
just listen.
That one thing would change the world
if we all were able to just listen.
Because what happened when I just listened to people
is they completely opened up, their hearts opened,
and they shared with me the stories of their life
that they had never shared before.
They shared their fears and their regrets.
They shared love.
They allowed me into their hearts,
and I allowed them into mine.
And it was such a gift - it is such a gift.
I want to tell you a story about John and Carrie.
John was in his 50s,
and he and Carrie were recently married when John was diagnosed with cancer.
By the time he found out about the cancer -
it was already at the very, very late stages -
so he wasn't even given six months to live like most hospice patients may,
he was only given less than a month.
So, when I went in to first see John and Carrie,
I was met with a shamanic healer,
met by him at the door.
He showed me the procedure he was doing about
trying to take the cancer and suck it into egg yolk.
At the time, I had only known Western medicine
I hadn't studied anything yet in alternative healing
and the things that I do now.
So I had no idea what was going on here,
but I could feel this desperation.
This, "OK, we have to find something. We have to find something."
They tried every single method they could
to just get rid of the cancer, fight it, battle it, just get it out of there.
We have a life to live, we have dreams to live.
You could feel the energy.
Until one day I went over there, and everything was different.
There was this peace just permeating the air.
I went over, and I asked them what was going on, and they said,
"We decided to let go.
We decided to surrender."
I want to make a clarification.
Letting go and surrender does not mean giving up.
It does not mean losing hope, It does not mean giving away faith,
and it is in no way a weakness.
But they let go, and what happened when they let go and surrendered
was they started to open up to life -
real, true, authentic living.
They were able to express with one another
these emotions and these things had been buried deep inside for years.
And John would go these very, very deep introspective places
where he would just get to know who he really was.
They shared this bond together
and invited all the family in to share this with them; and their friends.
It was just a beautiful, beautiful experience.
When we knew John was getting to the end of his life -
we knew that things were probably just a couple of days
before he took his last breath -
Carrie created a sanctuary for him.
She lit the most beautiful candles,
and music was playing all the time.
People would come in, family and friends,
and they were having a living memorial service -
something I think that we should do in the world so much more -
a living memorial service
where they came in, and they celebrated John's life with John there
so that he could hear everything that they said about him,
all these beautiful things, he was able to share with all of them
what means the most to him in their relationship.
After that, experience;
John was lying in bed,
and we sensed it was down to the minutes.
Carrie went over to his bed, and she climbed into bed with him.
She took his last breath with him.
They breathed in,
and there was peace.
There was so much peace.
That room was filled with love -
only love.
It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.
They taught me so much about the celebration of life.
It was nothing about death, it was life.
True, authentic, beautiful living, wholehearted living.
Not long after that, I met Henry.
Henry-Henry is great.
He was in his 80s, and he was also diagnosed with cancer.
I was going there every week for several months.
He was just hanging on and hanging on, he had quite an amazing spirit.
I got to know his family really well, too.
We will play cards together, and they'd invite me for lunch.
I'll never forget the day I went in there,
and there was a little bit of conflict going on with him and his daughter.
So I said, "What's going on?"
and Henry said, "You know what?
I only have a short amount of time to live.
I am sick and tired of sitting in this chair
wasting away.
I am going to live my life."
His daughter looks at him and says, "Dad, you are sick!"
He looks over to her and says, "Exactly. I am living my life!
I am out of here."
So he was.
We discharged him from hospice.
He got in his Cadillac,
and he drove by himself all the way up to California coast
to his favorite spot in Oregon
and lived a beautiful life for several more years.
That is the spirit of life.
He wasn't finished yet.
I think the most important thing that they taught me
was it is not really about how much time we have;
it is how we live these moments that we have that matter.
Letting go of all of that shell around us,
letting go of all that stuff because you know what?
It doesn't matter, it's not important.
Allowing our hearts to come out and shine into this world
in the way that we feel comfortable doing that,
because every single person in this world is going to do that differently.
Every single person has their own unique gifts
to give the world.
They taught me it's OK to be vulnerable.
It is OK to take risks.
Basically, it is OK to live,
and that's something I think so many of us are afraid of
to really fully live.
But take it from somebody
who knows their last breath is almost near.
They know what matters; they really do.
I am so blessed
to have had that experience with so many amazing people,
and I honor every single one of them
as my divine teachers,
my teachers of life.
Oprah Winfrey said,
"Breathe, let go, and remind yourself
that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure."
Let's honor that;
honor one another and honor ourselves.
And most of all, let's go out there and celebrate life.
Thank you.
(Applause)