At ease (or how to be a good visitor)
Your friend or relative is ill. This illness is well known for its terminal outcome. Do you feel awkward? What do you say to him or her? Would you sound insensitive? would your action make him or her feel worse?
I have always enjoyed visits from friends or relatives who came as if I am not ill. We joke. We laugh. We reminisce. We dream. Of course we talk about my illness, but it is not the focus. In those visiting moments, I forget about pain and any discomfort.
I would like to share an anecdote in Dr Phang Cheng Kar's book "Don't Worry, Be Healthy- A Buddhist Guide for Health & Healing". This particular chapter in the book is written by a monk; Reverand Ajahn Brahmavamso.
A nun told the reverand that she feel worse when some friends and relatives who visit her became sad & miserable seeing her dying. She said,"It's bad enough dying from cancer, that it's too much to deal with my visitors' emotional problems as well."
She went on to say that he was the only friend who treated her as a person, not as someone dying: who don't get upset at seeing her gaunt and wasted, but instead told her jokes and made her laugh. So the reverand told her jokes for the next hour, while the nun taught him how to help a friend with their death.
Ajahn Brahmavamso wrote that he learnt when you visit someone in hospital, talk to the person and leave the doctors and nurses to talk to the sickness.
His chapter also mentioned that everytime someone in the hospital bed was asked"How are you feeling today?", it may put that person in psychological stress because he or she may be compelled to lie; to say they are better when they are not. If they were to tell how they really feel lousy, it would disappoint the visitor and makes everyone sad.
I think it depends how well you know each other, and how at ease both sides are. But ultimately, we all want the visit to end with both the patient and visitor happier and more hopeful. Not just for the visitor to see how well (or not) the patient is doing, or to just fulfill a social or familial obligation, but to help in the patient's healing.
I have always enjoyed visits from friends or relatives who came as if I am not ill. We joke. We laugh. We reminisce. We dream. Of course we talk about my illness, but it is not the focus. In those visiting moments, I forget about pain and any discomfort.
I would like to share an anecdote in Dr Phang Cheng Kar's book "Don't Worry, Be Healthy- A Buddhist Guide for Health & Healing". This particular chapter in the book is written by a monk; Reverand Ajahn Brahmavamso.
A nun told the reverand that she feel worse when some friends and relatives who visit her became sad & miserable seeing her dying. She said,"It's bad enough dying from cancer, that it's too much to deal with my visitors' emotional problems as well."
She went on to say that he was the only friend who treated her as a person, not as someone dying: who don't get upset at seeing her gaunt and wasted, but instead told her jokes and made her laugh. So the reverand told her jokes for the next hour, while the nun taught him how to help a friend with their death.
Ajahn Brahmavamso wrote that he learnt when you visit someone in hospital, talk to the person and leave the doctors and nurses to talk to the sickness.
His chapter also mentioned that everytime someone in the hospital bed was asked"How are you feeling today?", it may put that person in psychological stress because he or she may be compelled to lie; to say they are better when they are not. If they were to tell how they really feel lousy, it would disappoint the visitor and makes everyone sad.
I think it depends how well you know each other, and how at ease both sides are. But ultimately, we all want the visit to end with both the patient and visitor happier and more hopeful. Not just for the visitor to see how well (or not) the patient is doing, or to just fulfill a social or familial obligation, but to help in the patient's healing.
posted by Hee Boon at 12:33 pm
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