The Sacred Work of Hospice

There are some roles in this world that feel less like professions and more like callings.

Hospice work is one of them.

For years, through my own ministry, I have had the privilege of walking alongside hospice workers—watching the way they enter into some of life’s most tender, fragile spaces. I have always deeply respected what they do.

But this past year, with the passing of my mother in April and my mother-in-law in June, that respect deepened into something else entirely.

Something closer to awe.

Because this time, I wasn’t accompanying someone else’s family.

I was the family.

And I saw, up close, what it means to be invited into the sacred space between life and death—and to enter it with gentleness, humility, and grace. There is one moment I will carry with me always.

My mom was resting comfortably in her own bed. It was one of those rare and beautiful windows where everything felt… soft and peaceful. So we gathered around her—my sister, her niece, her best friend, and me. We climbed into bed beside her, tucked ourselves close, and began what can only be described as a girls’ gab session. We told stories. We laughed. We cried. We spoke to her and about her, letting memory and love fill the room. It was sacred.

And then, the hospice nurse arrived.

She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t shift the tone.

Instead, she quietly kicked off her Crocs at the door—as if she instinctively knew she was stepping onto holy ground—and gently made her way to my mom’s bedside.

Leaning in, she whispered softly in her ear, “I’m here to join the party.”

And my mom—who had been so still—managed the faintest, most beautiful smile.

It was such a small moment. And yet, it felt enormous.

Because in that simple gesture, this nurse didn’t just do her job. She joined us.

She honored what was happening in that room—not as something clinical, but as something sacred.

Later, she gently pulled me aside and shared something important.

“Your mom is very connected to what’s happening around her,” she said. “She is listening to the stories. She’s responding to the emotion.” And then she added, with such care,

“Please don’t be surprised if she chooses to begin her journey to heaven when she is alone.” At first, those words were hard to hear. No one wants someone they love to be alone at the end. Everything in us wants to be there—to hold their hand, to witness their final breath, to make sure they know they are not alone.

But what she helped me understand is something both tender and profound:

Love is powerful.

And sometimes, even when we say the words “It’s okay, you can go”, our presence can quietly communicate something else.

Stay.

Stay for me.

Stay because I’m here.

Stay because I’m not ready.

And sometimes, our loved ones—so deeply attuned to us, so bound to us in love—wait.

Until we step out of the room.

Until the space becomes quiet.

Until they feel free to take that final step without the weight of holding us in their leaving.

If you are someone who has carried the pain of not being in the room when your loved one passed…please, be gentle with yourself.

You did not abandon them. You did not miss something you were supposed to do.

Your love was there. It was in every word you spoke, every touch you offered, every moment you showed up before that final one. And it went with them.

It is the very thing they carried as they took their leave from this world.

Hospice workers understand this in a way most of us don’t—at least, not until we are walking it ourselves. They don’t just care for the dying. They care for the space.

They hold the tension between holding on and letting go.

They honor both the life that has been lived and the love that will remain.

They step in quietly, remove their shoes, and remind us (without ever needing to say it out loud) that we are standing on holy ground.

And that, even here,

light still lives.

You can find my book Light Lives Here: Finding Hope in the Valley of Grief HERE