examine their thoughts and feelings about death and remove any ambiguity or fear to effectively assist their dying patients. The Divine Mercy message and spirituality, with its emphasis on God’s tender love for each person and His infinite mercy and longing to bring everyone to His heavenly home, will help nurses and doctors to embrace death with serenity, discuss it without fear, and bring hope and peace to the patients who may be too afraid to talk about death. The nurses’ or doctors’ faith in eternal life will directly affect their ability to speak with confidence and hope to the dying patient. Guided by the Holy Spirit, they will speak with the dying as with a friend, in the most natural way, in order to alleviate fears and assist them in their final needs, not getting caught up in the technology of medicine. Here are several real life examples offered by a Nurse for Divine Mercy. “I was a young nurse just out of school, and my patient on the respirator in the ICU asked me if she was dying. Not knowing what to say, I paged the resident who avoided the question entirely and quoted statistics on ‘how many patients died with this type of condition.’ I realized that I had to tell her myself. I pulled up a chair and held her hand and told her that she was dying. I encouraged her to have faith and trust in God. She said she needed to plan with her husband for her family — she was 28 years old with 5 children. They both spent the next 12 hours talking with a signboard and drawing letters in their hands, as she could not speak. I called the minister who came and offered the consolation of Christ. She died peacefully, and I realized that had I not been honest with her and overcome my own fear of speaking of death, she would not have had time with her husband or children. 73
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