Walking on Sunshine

Faith, hope and belief mean we’re never completely alone in life — or even in death.

One of the cruelties of the Covid-19 pandemic has been that a significant number of patients hospitalized with the disease died without loved ones present. It wasn’t that family and friends didn’t want to be there, but that many hospitals kept visitors away — including family members and spouses — to fight the spread of the virus. Even priests had no choice but to administer last rites over the telephone. One doctor called the isolation “the medical version of solitary confinement.” In some cases, medical personnel kept a vigil with the dying, but that, of course, is not the same as having people in attendance who have been important in the dying person’s life.

Sad as that is, we have no way of knowing what the experience of dying alone is like for the one going through it, although some pastors, chaplains and hospice workers say being alone at that time may matter less to the one dying than to those left behind. Former hospice chaplain Kerry ...