Perspectives on Bereavement: Marti Smith and the Hospice Team

Here are a few excerpts from a recent article for one of our newsletters.  Along with pictures of some of us in the hospice team, there will be an article about hospice services and our director, Gretchen White-Streuli.  Enjoy.

 

What goes on in spiritual and bereavement services?

Hospice is a team effort, and Marti’s role focuses on the emotional and spiritual needs of patients and families from admission to years after the death of the loved one. Hospice traditions from its beginnings and today Medicare regulations require attention to the whole person and family, not just the physical problems. Official requirements also include support for professional team members’ emotional and spiritual wellbeing. As a society with deep fears of illness and death, all of us are vulnerable, and experience teaches that preparation is the key to helping others and ourselves navigate the challenges of sickness, dying, death, and grieving.

Every situation brings its own challenges.

In her duties in spiritual and bereavement services, Marti listens to team members to assess each family’s situation to customize appropriate services. Every case is different, from the great, great grandmother with congestive heart failure to the young father with brain cancer. In each case, individuals are coping with unfamiliar demands and feelings, and each person’s experience is different. With hospice medical social workers, Marti helps families connect to their support systems, to friends, faith traditions, community agencies. In the Reading area, often a mom or dad has moved away from a home church, so, as needed, Marti arranges for local pastors to provide ministerial support. Fortunately, in Berks and Pottstown, there is wonderful community cooperation from a wide variety of faiths. Our families, often multi-generational, may have a mix of affiliations and religious preferences. Marti helps families to find common ground to guide them before and after the loved one’s death. She is available to assist with planning memorial services or funerals in accordance with the wishes of the family and conducts services when requested.

Care Long After Your Loved One Dies

Personalized attention to mourning families continues with a set of services that Marti coordinates. She started as a hospice volunteer and now enjoys a large team of volunteers who make calls, send regular letters and uplifting reading, and keep all of the records for an operation that most years serves around 400 bereaved. Twice a year, Marti participates in the agency-wide memorials with the Tree of Remembrance and the Butterfly Release. She says that she especially enjoys sharing the volunteer created knitted shawls, hats, booties, gowns, and other special items. On being a member of the hospice team, Marti says she is blessed to share times when the earthly and the spiritual seem to come together around a patient’s bedside or in the weekly moments when those who have passed are honored.

Personal Details

Marti has been an ordained minister since 1971, in the United Church of Christ since 1983. She was born and grew up in Jacksonville, Florida and went to Duke University, Duke Divinity School, and received graduate degrees from both Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She worked in colleges and universities both teaching and in libraries. An early tech enthusiast, she taught online at several places, first starting a blog while at Drexel in the School of Information in 2005. She now has a blog Compassion Comes Home linked to the VNA website (http://compassioncomeshome.blogspot.com ). She is a member of Immanuel United Church of Christ, Shillington, PA, and enjoys guest preaching and speaking in local churches and civic organizations. While teaching world religions early in her career, Marti came to appreciate the importance of spiritual expression to people in both life and death. She is grateful to work as part of a healthcare organization devoted to respecting all perspectives as patients and families face difficult challenges.