Contemplative Caregiving: Finding Healing, Compassion, and Spiritual Growth through End-of-Life Care

Baugher (Creative Social Change), a social science researcher and longtime hospice volunteer, illuminates the life-giving opportunities that arise from the hospice experience (both those in hospice and caregivers) in this compassionate and intimate look at caring for the dying. Baugher describes how he began caregiving at age 18, as a means to cope with the trauma of his mother’s murder and being estranged from his father. With hindsight, he notes that his early volunteering was more about him than his patients: “I was so blinded by my glowingly good intentions.” But that early desire to seem like a caring person led him on a path of humility and true healing as he came to view hospice work as a transformative spiritual practice. Baugher relays stories of caregivers from many walks of life: prison inmates, Vietnam veterans, and people seeking to assuage guilt over not having cared for dying loved ones, among others. While examining preconceptions and behaviors that can undermine the quality of caregiving, such as romanticizing hospice work and infantilizing a dying person, Baugher contends that everyone has the capacity to care, and that learning from mistakes leads to spiritual growth. Each chapter includes a section called “Contemplation,” which often poses a question (for instance, “Who would you be without your grief?”). While this elegant work will be of particular value to hospice volunteers, Baugher’s wisdom will resonate with anyone who finds themselves caring for someone at the end-of-life. (Apr.)