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How to Be a Spiritual Caregiver

No matter what your religious beliefs are, it is important that you have someone who can speak for you if you are too sick or are near death. To ensure that your spiritual wishes are taken care of in the manner you desire. It’s not a time for argument or schisms between family and friends regarding religion. Dying should be a time of peaceful prayer of the choice of the person whose life is ending. This would turn out to be a struggle right up to and after Mathew’s last breath.


Mathew had a difficult time sleeping at night. This had been going on for sometime before his diagnosis and continued until after he started receiving chemotherapy. In those first two weeks at Moffitt, I recall one night in particular. We were both awake. Mathew asked if I would read to him. His sister Danielle, had given him a book, “Living Buddha, Living Christ” by Thich Nhat Hanh.  Mathew asked if I would read out loud to him. I did and we talked about the passages I had read and then he asked if I could pray for him, he was too sick to pray himself. This seems to be a common thread. My Mother had the same experience with my sister Beth when she was going through chemotherapy. She also asked my Mom to pray for her as she felt too sick to be able to pray for herself. 
That was the first time Mathew showed me how to use a mala and taught me the mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum. Without realizing it at the time, that was the first step in my becoming Mathew’s spiritual caregiver, his advocate to honor his spiritual wishes for when he passed and during times when he was too sick to speak for himself.

This is very important. There is a book, “Dying with Confidence: A Tibetan Buddhist Guide to Preparing for Death" by Anyen Rinpoche, which speaks to this issue, though I didn’t know about this book until after Mathew had passed away.

But that first time, in the middle of the night, when we feared that Mathew could take a turn for the worse and die any day, Mathew started to prepare me for his spiritual journey as well as his journey with cancer.
It started with a prayer. 
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