To Kiss A Mezuzah

By Susan Esther Barnes

Last weekend, I attended days 3 and 4 of the Kol Haneshama class series given by the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center. The purpose of the class is to train volunteers to work at the Jewish Home in San Francisco with people who are approaching the end of life. The class is also open to people like me who don’t live in San Francisco, and who will be using what we learn in our own community.

I was glad that, after breakfast together, we started Saturday morning with Shabbat services. We were told we were welcome to bring a tallit, so I wore mine, as did the rabbi leading the service, and a couple of other people.

Saturday was all about loss. There were two activities that particularly stood out for me that day. For the first one, we were each given 16 post-it notes: a set of four each of four different colors. On one color, we were asked to write one activity that is important to us on each of the four post-its of that color. For the second color, we wrote four roles we play that define us. On the third color, we wrote the names of four people who are important to us, and on the last color we wrote four physical objects that we own that are important to us.

Then, we were asked to select one post-it of each color, and to place it in a bowl. At first, I didn’t know what the activity was about. I thought maybe the trainer was going to read out loud a selection of the things we had written. Foolishly, I picked the four things that were the most important to me, and put them in the bowl.

We were then asked to look at what we had left, and I began to realize that what we were being asked to do was to imagine what it would be like if we lost some of the things that are important to us – activities, roles, people, and things. The activity was helping us to see what kinds of things people lose when they become ill and/or elderly, and to imagine what that would feel like.

Next, we were asked to pick four more post-its, of any color, and place them in the bowl. This time, I chose more wisely. I held on to the things I had left that I would least like to lose. Once again, we spent some time contemplating what we had left.

The trainer then announced that he was going to come around and take some of our post-its. This was the same trainer who did the photo activity with us on the first evening, and similar to what he did at that time, when he gave different numbers of photos to different people, he took different numbers of post-it notes from different people. At least one person was left with all eight remaining post-its, and at least one person was left with only one.

Once again, he asked us to look at what we had left. He asked us, “Is it enough?” and someone else answered what I was thinking, “It has to be.” All in all, it was a sad and sobering experience to contemplate being left with so much less than I have now, especially in terms of activities and roles.

When the trainer asked what it was like when he said he would take some post-its rather than allowing us to pick them for ourselves, I told him, “I was thinking, ‘That’s too bad, I used to like you.’”

The other activity that stands out for me was at the end of the day. Each of us were asked to think about someone we knew who had died, and to write on an index card three things: Something we regret, something we would like the person to know, and something we wish for the person. On my card, I wrote to my grandmother who died in 1983.

One by one, we stood up and read what was on the card, then dropped it into the bottom of a ceramic pot, while the other members of the class said, “Amen.” Once everyone was done, together we all put dirt into the pot, planted a houseplant in it, and watered the plant. The plant is going to be brought to the Jewish Home, where most of the people in the class will be volunteering.

What surprised me the most about this activity is how emotional I felt, even though it has been so long since my grandmother died. She had the same disease as Katharine Hepburn, so that her whole body shook all the time. It always seemed to me it must be hard to sleep in that situation. My grandmother always seemed so strong, self-reliant and capable, it had never before occurred to me to wish for something for her. What I wished for her was the ability to be still when she wants to be.

One other thing that struck me about day 3 is that we were told that our lunch hour would be a silent lunch. I took this to mean that none of us would speak during the lunch break, yet several people from the class spoke to me. After I ate, I left the building and took a walk around the grounds, which include lovely paths like the one picture at the top of this post, but I found myself spending more time than I would have liked feeling annoyed because people had spoken to me. When I returned to the building, again, people from class spoke to me even though the lunch break was not yet over.

When class resumed, we were asked what the experience of the silent lunch was like for us. At the risk of alienating various people in the room, I spoke about how frustrating it was to me that so many people spoke to me, when I had been anticipating having a chance to spend the hour in silence.

Later that afternoon we had another, 15 minute, silent break, and once again someone from the class spoke to me during the break. Believe it or not.

So Saturday was focused on ourselves and on loss. Sunday was focused on serving others. We did some text study and learned a bit about listening skills, and did some roleplays of what we would say and do when we were visiting residents at the Jewish Home.

The best part of the day, for me, was a video of Jewish Home residents, centered around a performance they put on of songs they had written. The documentary started filming in the week before the performance, which had been scheduled to be on September 12, 2001, adding an extra dimension to it because of the September 11 tragedy.

As you can see, day 3 was much more impactful to me than day 4.

Worse, I’m afraid I won’t be able to write about the classes on days 5 and 6, because I came down with a nasty intestinal flu, and was unable to finish the class series. I don’t yet know what that will mean to my potential future as a volunteer.

By Susan Esther Barnes

Earlier this week, I attended the first evening of the Kol Haneshama class series given by the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center. The purpose of the class is to train volunteers to work at the Jewish Home in San Francisco with people who are approaching the end of life. The class is also open to people like me who don’t live in San Francisco, and who will be using what we learn in our own community.

The class series consists of two evenings this week, two evenings next week and one full weekend in between. That is a lot to pack into a short period of time, especially considering the evenings are from 5:15 until 10 pm and the two weekend days are each from 8:30 am to 7 pm.

We were told that the evening sessions would include a meal, but I was a bit surprised when the meal started at 5:30 and continued until 6:30. This meant we had an hour and 15 minutes, plus whatever extra time beforehand for those of us who arrived early, to do nothing but talk with each other and to eat.

Later, when one of the trainers went over a list of things to keep in mind during the sessions, I realized what was going on. We were told, “The process is the content,” and I realized that part of the plan must be to help us to slow down from our busy day, as well as to give us a chance to get to know each other a little, before the training started.

In keeping with the “process is the content” idea, we continued with an ice breaker activity, a little text study, and a meditation. By that point, frankly, I was getting a bit impatient. I know many human beings require more time to get to know other people than I do before they feel safe enough to start talking certain things, but I wanted to move on.

Finally, we got to the last activity of the evening, which I found fascinating.

One of the trainers passed out one photo to each of us, face down. He explained that these were all photos of people who had been in hospice. We turned them face-side-up when he told us to do so, so we could look at the person in front of us. We were sitting in a circle, and he told us to pass our photo to the person on our right whenever he said, “Next.”

As we looked at the photos, he told us to notice certain things about them, such as, “What is surprising about this photo,” or “What do you see in the person’s environment?” From time to time, as he talked, he said, “Next,” and we passed the photo we had and took another from the person on our left.

At one point – and this was brilliant – he handed a couple of extra photos to some people, so they had three photos at once. He also took the photos from some people, so they had none. Then, he started to talk about things like how, while we are doing this work, we may go on vacation, expecting to see the same people when we return, but by the time we get back, one or more of them may be gone. He also talked about how some volunteers would form deep relationships with people we may never spend much time with, or may never even meet.

At the same time, he started occasionally saying, “Next,” much more frequently. As a result, some people, especially those with three photos, barely got any time to see the photos they had, while others had no photos to look at, at all. I thought this was a great way to model how unbalanced this work must feel sometimes.

Afterward, we talked about the photos, and we had a chance to say which one startled us, or which photo we fell in love with, or which one made us uncomfortable, etc.

One photo we talked about for a while was of a young man holding up his driver’s license. We discussed how patients sometimes feel a loss of identity as well as mobility, and the driver’s license symbolizes both. We also mentioned how different he looked from his license photo, and how challenging it must be, when one becomes ill, to find oneself looking so different.

I was particularly struck by the fact that most of us don’t like our driver’s license photo, but that if we lost a bunch of weight, and/or our hair, or suffered other changes in our looks due to illness, how most of us would dearly love to look like that license photo again. As they say, sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

I was also captivated by a photo of a woman with her eyes closed and her mouth open. It reminded me of my friend Rose, may her memory be a blessing, on the morning of the day she died. She, too, was unresponsive, and just lying there, breathing with her mouth open. I would have liked to sit with the woman in the photo, as I sat with Rose that morning.

I am looking forward to what the rest of the training has in store, although I’m sure much of Thursday night through Sunday will pass in a blur. Stay tuned.

By Susan Esther Barnes

I recently filled out the application to attend the training for “Kol Haneshema: Jewish End of Life Care,” given by the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center.

This isn’t a class you can take on a whim. It’s 40 hours of intensive training, and to participate you have to fill out a four-page-long application. Then, if your application passes muster, you get an interview. It’s only after the interview that you find out whether you’re going to get into the class.

I can understand why they do all the screening. I’m sure the last thing they need is people of the wrong temperament barreling into the Jewish Home and making the residents feel uncomfortable. Also, I suppose they don’t want to waste their time and effort training people who aren’t going to follow through once the class is over to actually visit people who are elderly and/or dying.

I found the application to be quite interesting, although one question struck me as a bit odd. It asks whether the applicant has ever attended a funeral. When I saw that I thought, “Everyone who’s applying is an adult, and most of us are probably at least in our 30’s or 40’s, so of course we’ve all attended a funeral at some point, right?”

It turns out I was wrong. I recently visited my 83-year-old mother, who informed me she has never been to a funeral. Go figure.

I was pleased to find I’ve already done most of the stuff they ask about in the application. Yes, I have been to a funeral. Several, in fact. Yes, I have spent time with someone who was very sick and/or dying. Yes, I have seen (even washed!) a dead body.

The application also asked questions that took some thought to answer, such as the effect that my experiences with serious illness have had on me, what kinds of situations or patients I think I’ll have the most difficulty working with, and why I’ve chosen this kind of volunteer work over others that are available.

I must have answered at least some of the questions right, since I have an interview scheduled on December 1, with the fabulous Rabbi Elliot Kukla. Stay tuned for what comes next.