Larry Patten

I am a writer, a United Methodist minister, and currently serve at a hospice in California. I maintain www.larrypatten.com (musings about faith) and www.hospice-matters.com. And just to remind myself that I’m never fully in control, my wife and I are raising a puppy. Whew. I have published two books, available on Amazon: A Companion for the Journey: 41 Reflections (Mostly) on the Lord's Prayer . . . and Another Companion for the Journey: 40 Reflections (and Questions) on Faith. Through my professional work at churches and in hospice, I understand it’s difficult to openly discuss dying and death, or to share how grief can impact us every day. Don’t feel like you’re alone with your concerns and questions. I look forward to your comments here at Open to Hope or at www.hospice-matters.com.

Articles:

A Christmas Promise

A Christmas Promise On a long-ago Christmas Eve, I made my last visit to a patient as her hospice chaplain. I was honoring a promise made weeks before. While a December storm spit rain, and clouds played hide-and-seek with the stars, I held the hand of a dying woman. In the surrounding neighborhood, holiday lights flickered, inflatable Santas and snowmen waved greetings, and outdoor ornaments sparkled as the gusting wind teased them. In the patient’s room, it was quiet. In the patient’s room, she now mostly slept. New Obligations I’d already started working as a congregation’s new minister. It had […]

My Loved One Died and the Grief Hurts

This is an excerpt from Larry Patten’s A Companion for the Hospice Journey which is available on Amazon or though his website Hospice Matters. He has died. She has died. You are numb. You can’t concentrate. You can’t imagine eating again or you graze junk food throughout the day. You can’t sleep, always feeling tired. Or you sleep too much, but can’t shake the never-ending exhaustion. Friends express kind words, though you barely comprehend anything said. Of course, there are others who say oddly hurtful words. Their clichés become arrows piercing your heart. (If God needed another angel or […]

I Just Wanted Her for One More Day

This is an excerpt from Larry Patten’s A Companion for the Hospice Journey, which is available on Amazon or though his website Hospice Matters. Several years ago, our hospice team gathered to discuss the day’s work. Not long after we began, a veteran nurse wept when sharing about the death of one of her assigned patients. It was a child, not yet school age. The nurse had cared for and supported her tiny patient since birth. How can any infant or child (and their families) be burdened with the phrase, “hospice appropriate?” And yet they are. Family, friends, doctors and […]

When Death Comes Quickly

This is an excerpt from Larry Patten’s A Companion for the Hospice Journey which is available on Amazon or though his website Hospice Matters. What about a loved one who dies quickly? I don’t mean sudden, traumatic deaths such as fatal accidents, natural disasters like wherever the most recent earthquake has hit, or from bullets in war zones (and sadly in schools, at concerts, and on city streets). What about the 30% of deaths in hospice that occur within seven days? And within those national averages, some patients are in hospice for barely 24 hours. Being with a hospice for […]

Well-Dressed Grief

He was dressed for success. His suit was charcoal gray, shirt the blue of a perfect spring sky, both complimented by an elegant tie. Since the gentleman had just entered the room of a noon-time support group for those 55-and-over, I suspected he was coming from work. Or was he retired and always wore his Sunday best? My father, well into his eighties, frequently sported a button-down shirt and matching tie. Until dementia stole nearly everything about Dad, he might add a jacket to complete the look. Office bound or collecting pensions, some guys like to maintain appearances. I work […]

Inspirational poem about puzzles by author Laurel D. Rund

A Terrible Saturday Morning

“I feel like I’m getting close to the gates,” he muttered. He was 91. I knew he was referring to death, to the “Pearly Gates” where Gabriel the angel (or Saint Peter or St. Someone) famously waited with a list of names. And he knew I was there to discuss some of the last decisions he’d make as he faced his final days. As I explained hospice’s benefits to him in a hospital room, I wouldn’t have guessed how close he was to those “gates.” In his nineties, he looked seventy and griped like a teen just told he couldn’t […]

I Still Grieve my Father’s Silence

My wife pointed to a curved red slash on my leg. “Where’d you get those scrapes?” “Maybe from the dog when we played a couple of hours ago?” Our dog has raggedy claws and abundant enthusiasm. Two cats also own us and one, Milo, randomly treats our flesh like a pincushion. An errant branch could slap my cheek when I’m biking or hiking. I cook, using sharp objects and boiling liquids. Life can be dangerous in the suburbs. I always enjoy the scene in 1975’s Jaws where Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw compared scars while hunting Hollywood’s most famous shark. […]

In the Forest: Unsettled by a Stillbirth

Serena asked me to help bury her child. This question occurred a couple of years after we met. I wonder now if Serena’s request, accompanied by her intense gaze, had been within her heart when she first worshiped at the rural church I then served. Her stillborn child, named Eve, was carried to near the due date. After her birth, Serena and her husband Jake shoveled a hole in the dark forest behind their cabin and lowered their child into the earth. There wasn’t any ritual, or prayers. According to Serena, they trudged back to the cabin, returned to their […]

Set Free to Grieve and Heal

In the Bible, Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Bad Jesus! Law-breaking Jesus! Once he was accused of healing a woman who’d been in physical agony for nearly two decades. Jesus replied (Luke 13:16) to his critics with, “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” Not only did Jesus ignore the rule of not working on the Sabbath, the person healed was a . . . woman. In that era, women were property, mere second-class citizens. Worse yet, the incident occurred in […]

At My Father’s Desk: Dementia’s Silent Toll

Grief can elbow its way into life long before death. This I remember . . . I visit my parents’ home. Only Mom lives there now. Because of dementia, Dad has resided in a memory care facility for nearly three months. He sleeps often. Awake he can be silent. Alert, he will often express himself in the third person, or engage in various—and disturbing—hallucinations. Dementia is awful. Dad’s in his golden years. Mom, too. Nothing glitters. Grief lurks. In my Dad’s office at home, I sit at his desk. One task on this visit has become sorting through my father’s […]

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