 Aloha! I'm Marsha Joyner, your host for Navigating the Journey. Navigating the Journey is dedicated to exploring the options and choices for end-of-life care and assist people talking about their wishes. It's time to transform our culture so we shift from not talking about dying to talking about it. It's time to share the way we want to live at the end of our lives and to communicate about the kind of care we want and don't want for ourselves. We believe that the place for the beginning of this conversation is not in the intensive care unit but together. Now together we can explore the various paths to life's ending. Together we can make these difficult conversations easier. Together we can make sure that our own wishes and those of our loved ones are expressed and respected and if you're ready to join we ask you to join with us navigating the journey. We are here to explore those choices. This is a conversation that every one of us needs to have and yet few are prepared for it. Too many people in our society have no idea how to properly help a loved one who is at the end of life. We don't know what to say, how to act, what their needs are of our loved ones. Today's guest is my dear, dear friend, the Reverend Dr. George Scott of Punahoe School and Central Union Church and Aloha and Shalom. Aloha and Shalom to you my friend. Good to be with you today. It is wonderful. Today we are a few days before the holy season and I said Shalom because this is, now you have to tell me if I'm right here, this is the first time in many many years. Fifty nine years. Fifty nine years that Hanukkah and Christmas have come at the same time. Yeah that's true that's true. So we want to again say Aloha, Meli Kaliki Maka, Shalom to everyone that's out there. This is this is a great season, a great time. So tell me about you. We've been friends for, I was trying to remember how long. It's been over 20-something years. Yeah it has been. Absolutely. So tell me about you. Well I'm a native of Detroit, Michigan and I've been here in Hawaii approaching 30 years and actually I came here for a one-year residency as a chaplain at Queens Medical Center and it turned out to be quite an experience and I'm still here today. Yeah so that's part of my journey, part of my journey. So as a chaplain at the hospital then you really came to see End of Life issues. Quite a bit, quite a few I would say. Yes and some were enlivening and awakening and and really did help me in this new culture to understand better how perhaps people here in Hawaii celebrate End of Life or or welcome End of Life or of course like many of us sometimes don't want to look at End of Life but yes absolutely and that's true of all cultures but it was truly a way of me being immersed into Hawaii absolutely. Now is that different let's say from where you came from from Chicago? Detroit? No. I meant welcoming and the way there's right right well yeah there's some there's some big differences there's big differences but then even in the differences there's similarities for instance being a chaplain here in Hawaii in my first year I was surprised to see that when a loved one was ill and perhaps near the end of life that the hospital allowed multiple guests to come in. I mean at that time we would have maybe 15 or 20 people in one room with ukuleles and singing and they asked me to join in and I said sure because they were singing old hymns that I was familiar with and I would recall calling my mother on the phone back in Detroit you know she's from the South and said mom guess what they're they're singing some of the songs we sing in church and and so gathered around their loved one just singing and trying to make them the moment welcoming children as well as adults and in the same room so that was very interesting and and a beautiful thing at the same time and so that's totally different than now I remember as a child that nobody was in the hospital at the end of life they were all at home so now that our medical technology has extended life so that people are now on these machines and all this stuff how does that work how do you from going from this comfort of being at home with family to being in with these machines yeah what did you see well over the years as even from the first day of chaplaincy to now things have have evolved hospice I think has done a great great deal of good in the community to help us understand that at the end of life it's your journey it's that person's journey it's not necessarily the hospital's journey it's that person's journey some people choose to say you know if this is what's happening and my family agrees with it I like to just go home and some actually choose to go home be disconnected beyond palliative care comfort care and then when the time comes they're surrounded by loved ones and so that is a piece that I think has truly been enlightening for our community that that is possible however seems that more often the case especially when unexpected that occurs that you may be you may find yourself in a hospital your loved ones in a hospital they are connected to the device right when accident or something but but given let's say a terminal illness yes where you know that no matter what medical people are going to do that this is mm-hmm yes this is is this going to be the end yeah that they they can't fix it exactly and part of that is for the good of the family I've heard many people tell me I really don't want my daughter or my son or my husband or wife to have to take care of me at home when I'm in a position that I can't care for myself the doctors and nurses are professionals I'll take my comfort care in a medical setting that way my family can come say hi to me go home visit when they want to and they don't have to be you know involved with the day-to-day pretty sometimes not a glorious part of caring for someone at that point and and so that's sometimes a desire of the person that's in the bed yeah say that well now I had my mother with me the last year of her life and for one day everything was fine the next day I was a caregiver no experience no just boom yeah you know things happen mm-hmm however what I did learn in that year of caring for her is well I learned a lot you know a lot of this was brand-new what do I do next however that year of sharing that love that I had never had with her never because she was always the mother exactly yeah no matter how old I was when she would say honey I said yes mama you know I would go back to being five years old so caring for her I got to be the adult and to love her like I had never done before so I am eternally grateful for that that year exactly however I wished that she had not had to suffer like that I wished that there was something I could do to help me the suffering right and and that's where I believe some of the modern technology has truly helped in that way that comfort care is truly have made so many advances so that a person is not necessarily in pain while they're going through this transition then the greatest transition that in life so to speak so that you don't see them experiencing pain and that's what I think most people enter the room say is is he in pain is he's is he hurting right now and when the medical professional say no no no he's probably not in any pain there's a sense of just peace that comes over people and they go oh okay long as he's not in pain as long as she's not hurting you know yeah so in your your congregational is that what Central Union is yeah put a whole Central Union even Arcadia because I do a lot with Arcadia retirement residents too but go ahead I'm so now tell me what the difference is in the congregational church and some of the other denominations with regards to death and dying or what just basically the difference degree where did he come from how did the congregation of church you know here especially here in Hawaii has its roots well the United Church of Christ which is where I'm a part of has its roots in the congregation of church and as you probably know that the the congregation of Christians were credited with being responsible for bringing Christianity to Hawaii and many of the beliefs say of Baptist congregational methodists they're pretty close to each other we just have different sacraments and things like that but very close and the belief of Christ God and the Holy Spirit being very very much a part of all of our belief systems too then how you live that out in the world maybe a little bit different but the hope is that the faith itself shows through and then your walk of life how you live with now so and are there any differences at the end of life yes and and most congregations and denominations are becoming really fluid with regards to family wishes there may be individual desires or or I hate to use the term rules but but there may be ways that religions observe the end of life that are specific to that faith however again here in Hawaii is quite different because cremation is a is a huge part of the community however there's some communities that they don't agree with cremating again it is the individual's desire that person may say I don't want a casket I want to be cremated I don't want my family look at you know and that sometimes may go against some of the beliefs of the that particular denomination but here in Hawaii cremation and a memorial is much more common than a casket and a body and a funeral yeah so it's interesting those two distinctions I think more than than religion when you live on an island and land is scarce buying property to that that's that's a rather absolutely yeah you've got to think about expensive and I have had the honor of doing a memorial service and when they open the niche there's three earns there already so grandma's earn is there granddaddy's there and and mom's and now they're placing dad's so that's in a small space like you said in terms of property you know then the prices are still probably pretty high but but the ability to say I'm going to place this earn with my other family and and they're all together physically in that space in terms of their ashes being there is really interesting you couldn't you really can't do that with a casket yeah I have I don't know how many little ashes of different people my mother of course and uncle and friends and whatnot in my office and my husband says no wonder I can't come in there's just so many spirits already here yeah and I know in saying my community back home in Detroit the African-American community it's I don't know if I've ever been to a service where there was not the body there yeah it's just not a cremating community you don't you just don't do that yeah and so it's different when I go home and my mother's service a couple years ago it was challenging for me to look at her that way because I know her a certain way yeah and so I was you know preaching the eulogy and all of that and and I just said well I know my mother and that's not her right there right she's she's different from what I'm looking at that yes you know and and but now we are gonna go to a break but when we come back speaking of black churches or African-American churches tell us about the process of homegoing so most people that's a foreign word homegoing so let's we go to a break and then when we come back let's talk about that because that's such a marvelous occasion for absolutely thank you yeah Aloha my name is Justine Espiritu and I co-host Hawaii farmers series with Matthew Johnson of Oahu Fresh we talk about Hawaii's local farmers and their supporters in order to have a vibrant and sustainable local food system farmers are always the foundation but there's so many other people and involved in the community that helps support those farmers so we bring those folks on to our show every Thursday at 4 p.m. we get their back story their history find out a little more about them and we find out why they love what they do and their perspective and their advice on how we can continue to have a dynamic and vibrant and sustainable local food system so we again we broadcast live every Thursday at 4 p.m. and you can also catch us on ThinkText YouTube channel as well as Alelo 54 so we hope you tune in and join us thank you hi we're back and we mentioned homegoing and that is something that is I don't know if the word is indigenous but is peculiar to or to the African-American culture and so tell me about you you've been to homegoing I've been a part of quite a few that touched my life and I would I mentioned my mother's passing but then my sister who was we sang together in gospel choirs and she took it to the next level and traveled with a very well-known gospel choir and they went all over the country and so when she passed away her service was like this giant gospel concert I mean they literally I get goosebumps thinking about they sang these powerful songs they stood in front of the family so if you can imagine 40 or 50 powerful gospel singers and a choir singing at the height of their voices and you would think that the whole church would just shout and they did people shouted and screamed it's like it's a homegoing it's like a awakening it's like this interesting thing where it's painful because your loved ones there and you're losing them but it's powerful and beautiful because you feel the joy that this is not the end see that's the that's the end that it's like this is not the end this is just a part of the journey and the part of the a few steps in her story and her story is yet to be told because now she's going home to be with the Lord so the homegoing is well this is just one part of life you're going on to the next part of life and so they sing her own you know to another place and the family is well we'll love to care for and it's takes all day it's a long day a lot of eating and singing and praying and praising and all kind of stuff yeah I notice in Mrs. King's homegoing that the mainstream media had no idea what was going on what was going on they didn't know how to report it and it was absolutely gorgeous and it just went on and on and on but you talked about joyful and pain and pain yeah tell us you you're you've got a degree in yeah and the doctorate in ministry in the area of counseling and grief okay so let's let's talk about that joy and pain and grief and and dealing with that yeah that's a I think I ended up in that area because I had that experience of my sister right you know and how that impacted me for her to be cared for but also the pain that I experienced and and you know we know that there are stages of grief and and they're not simply easily laid out like you say well there's denial there's bargaining there's anger there's acceptance and and you know those they don't always flow in order so what happens quite often is that you at this point of life where now you realize that this person is gone but you don't want it to be real so that denial sits in that's just usually that one is right up front that it's like well wait a minute wait a minute they're not really gone they're not really gone so you kind of shut down you become numb find yourself waking up in the morning thinking that that was just a dream you know so that's one of the the ways you you might experience it and and then the other is the this bargaining the bargaining of saying if I could just do this then maybe I could heal from this and it won't happen and many of these stages of grief were really laid out as anticipatory in other words I know I have this illness I know that it's they're saying that I won't live however I'm gonna deny that I'm also gonna bargain with God I'm also gonna get angry with God I'm also going to sometimes sort of accept it but then I'm gonna go into this deep place of darkness depression and so it's that mixed up kind of crazy thing that that we call grief do we grieve prior to yeah that's that's actually it's actually very important being the reason for that is that so if we were in quite often you go in for a surgery they say well I want you to get real healthy first before the surgery right so that when you go through it you come out on the other side and you'll be a little better it's the same thing with grieving we often grieve heavily prior to death and and Elizabeth Kubler Ross who gave us those five stages of grief she really was studying anticipatory grief that and she worked with people who had a terminal illness diagnosis and understood that here the things you're going to go through and here's what I'm experiencing with you prior to going and and I have been in my journey with others experienced the same thing and it's it's really very powerful so let's talk about the terminally ill and and what they go through like you said there's the grief prior to they know they're going they know that this tumor is not going to get any better there's nothing medical people can do and then of course we ask at that point if they have a choice how would they what they want is that adding to the difficulty or does that relieve it's different for everyone it really is I mean every person experiences it differently I had a very very close friend of mine who was in the exploring process you know with you on Sunday one day on Wednesday was in the hospital and never left and did not know that he was ill and in that process it started to happen the bargaining with God that boy when I get better I'm gonna do this with the church or in the community or boy when you know I've done a lot with God I don't understand why this is even happening to me why would this be you know so I think that it's each individual then towards the end you know sometimes healing takes place in ways that we don't understand like healing with family members family members come from far away that maybe you hadn't talked to in a while and in this person's case it was a family member came they had a great conversation kind of a reunion and they've been estranged from each other 10 or 15 years so there's this healing sometimes it takes place that we can understand it's not physical because this person did you know pass away however there was a healing that took place that maybe even greater than than the others because they have a someone you love separated from you and then come back to you and you can be together is powerful so it's different for every individual yeah now this is a bit well it's the same thing we had a couple of priests talk to us about they had this suggestion that we should all while we're healthy have a meeting with family and the doctor to talk about end-of-life choices when we're healthy not when at the critical moment right so we should make these choices now with a family they suggested we have a family get together invite all family from everywhere let's get together and so and make these choices sign these directives and then make sure everybody has a copy hmm that's very proactive let's do it now before we get to that emotional upset when we may or may not make the right choices you know it takes a takes a special person and family to do that to be honest for what I have seen in my life and in my journeys and I'll say like my wife is a very special person and she's has a little box and she says this is where this is kept this is what I wanted my service this is what I'm like okay I get it and here I am dealing with this all the time but I don't want to hear this don't don't bring any heroic efforts to try to bring me back and you know I don't want to hear it but at the same time I get it and I and observe it and she she has told all of us this is the deal so I think it takes a special family and individual to do it but it is a wonderful thing if we could do that more often yeah and it's happening more often it is it is and I just thought that's such a good idea I don't know how to move from here to there to see that people can get there can get there to do that however part of what we're here for is to talk about it right to have this conversation that people can be comfortable with talking about it even if they don't have the boxes like you do now my husband of course would not talk about it even though he signed the directive but he's not gonna talk about it yeah and my daughter is a hospice nurse so we already got this one planned yeah yeah this is it that the idea of being able to come together to have this conversation just like you and I are having a conversation and and to be able to see the beauty in in this transformation this this homegoing as we call it to see the beauty in it rather than some kind of terror yeah yeah and it has it has stigmas for many of our many of our faiths and many of our cultures there's a huge stigma around death and and then say in African-American culture there's a lot of stigmas around it that are in the younger generations they're kind of letting that go however you know where when I grew up and you know and in the 50s 60s it was very heavily that you didn't don't do this you don't talk about that because if you talk about it's gonna happen well we all are gonna transition out of here somewhere we will die someday you know so you know in the early days especially in New Orleans you see the parade and what have you because life was so difficult that this was a celebration celebration of leaving this going a true going home right yeah yeah this is this is life as as we knew it and those years was really not a pleasant thing coming in I love that there's a to experience that is just one unbelievable thing it is I went to one homegoing and they actually did the hula in front of the yes absolutely did the hula and even though the person was African-American it was so totally local right right well that's the beauty of living here it is and experiencing the culture and the and the acceptance of all cultures and races and and belief systems it's really great to blend a lot of those things together and and I guess that's where we come to saying about the choice people have to have because of all the different cultures of all the different traditions and beliefs we have to have the ability to choose what works for us not what works for them or them or this religion or this society that we have to be able to do that simply because we have blended families and exactly yeah yeah we we got to think living here we should truly be proactive and I'm gonna have to get a little more proactive but because you're far away from perhaps relatives right who really may want to have something to say about things or or and sure yeah so maybe that meeting you're talking about Marsha one that we should do we should do we can do it on on Facebook Skype yeah anyway yes yeah we should we you know of course it's been a pleasure spending this time with you and it went much too fast we'll have to do it again real quick real quick Christmas and Hanukkah together how long many years 59 years 59 years so we celebrated together so we are there special celebrations that combine the two you know what I was here with a rabbi and and my good our good friend Seymour the other day or how Rabbi Ronowitz and Seymour and yes I think there'll be some special celebrations and getting together good the world coming together thank you thank you so much this has been a real pleasure and goodbye