Exploring Metaphoric Language at End of Life

Photo by Evgeni Evgeniev

 We're happy to share with you this interview by Barbara Morningstar, author of Honoring the Mystery; Uplifting Insights from the Language, Visions, and Dreams of the Dying with our very own Lisa Smartt.

 From Barbara Morningstar:

Lisa Smartt is a linguist, educator, and poet. She is the author of Words at the Threshold: What We Say When We’re Nearing Death. The book is based on data collected through The Final Words Project, an ongoing study devoted to gathering and interpreting the mysterious language at end of life. She has worked closely with Raymond Moody, guided by his research into language.

In this conversation we discuss:

• The role of a linguist.

• How the unexpected change in her father’s language at the end of his life led her to this research.

• Literal, metaphoric, and nonsensical language.

• How acknowledging the changing awareness can help those nearing death.

• The importance of staying open, curious and listening when these events occur. 

• How loved ones and staff can also be touched by the experiences.

   

   

Barbara Morningstar

Barbara Morningstar began in the hospice field over twenty-five years ago and during that time she worked on staff at three different hospice societies within the province of British Columbia in Canada.

The most notable was at a hospice society where she held the position of program director for twelve and a half years. While there, Barbara oversaw their palliative and bereavement programs, counseling staff, and hospice volunteers. Her teams worked with palliative patients and their loved ones in the twenty-bed hospice residence, the eleven-bed Tertiary Palliative Care unit in the local hospital, and with people who were being supported to die at home in the community. The society also provided one-to-one grief support and grief groups to bereaved of all ages. She has worked with thousands of people during this tender life transition over her many years in the hospice field. 

Her husband of twenty years died of cancer in 2008. This clearly was a challenging loss which has given her greater sensitivity, on a very personal level, to those losing loved ones.  She is a sought after keynote speaker at major hospice and palliative conferences and launched In Autumn’s Cocoon Education in the fall of 2017.  She is the author of the book Honoring the Mystery; Uplifting Insights from the Language, Visions, and Dreams of the Dying. Barbara presently is offering her skills and years of experience in end of life care as an educator in the form of talks, workshops and writings.

You can learn more at her website In Autumn's Cocoon.