Stories from the day hospice

The Wellcome Collection currently has a post on its website about a creative writing group at the Princess Alice Hospice, Esher, where the patients don't seem to have lost their sense of humour.

An ambulance siren went off in the distance. Margaret said, “Oh, I don’t like that sound, go away.” She tells us how she was waiting outside the hospital for her taxi the other day. Being a self-confessed chatterbox, she got talking to the man next to her. Just then, a hearse pulled up in front of them. “Is that mine or yours?” she asked.

This reminded me of one of my funeral director friends and his dry sense of humour. For the past few years I've struggled to manage graveside ceremonies due to poor mobility. The funeral directors knew this, and did what they could to help. When a grave was a long way from the  car park, a funeral director offered me a lift in the hearse. Afterwards, he asked if I'd like a lift back to my car. I said yes please. "Horizontally or vertically?" he enquired.

Those with the most problems were those who had not sorted out their ideas...

This is from an obituary for Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the hospice movement, who died in 2005.

Though the philosophy underlying St Christopher's was Christian, it welcomed patients of any persuasion or none. Cicely Saunders noticed that those who coped best always had a shining faith, but that atheists often died as peacefully as Christians. The people with the most problems were those who had not sorted out their ideas. Clergymen, oddly, and the affluent, often turned out to have the most difficulty.