when i studied to become a hospice care assistant I had to undergo a week program on how to care for the dying, and also how to care for the ones that were taking care of them. Somewhere in the middle of the course, a teacher came in we had not seen before and told us that she wanted us all to understand and feel the feeling of what the patients are going through. she had an experiment she wanted us all to partake in and said it would help us get an idea of what its like to die.

it began simple enough, she passed us each a stack of small pieces of paper and said she was going to tell a story, she wanted us to follow along. In the story, the main character was us, and before it began she wanted us to write down somethings about what we love, what we cherish. On the first stack of paper she wanted us to list three of our favorite activities we like to do. Individually, one per paper. Put those in a stack, then take the next stack and write down three of your favorite possessions. A third stack for you favorite foods, a fourth of you three favorite people and a final stack of three things you would love to do or work on before the end comes.

the story began in the shower one morning, as you were washing you felt a strange lump under one arm. upon visiting the doctor and hearing that he would like to biopsy the space as soon as possible the story unfolded to the unfortunate result of an advanced, malignant tumour growing and you had to immediately undergo treatment. she told us to take the stack of our activities we love to do and to take one of them away, fold it up since the rest needed would be unable to partake in it anymore and kept going into the story. since the treatment caused your immune system to dive, it was unfortunate that you also had to see less people, take the stack of your favorite people, take someone out, fold it and throw it away. the story went on and ran the current course that all of us will one-day encounter. a time when you have to give up the things that you loved, the people and the events, retired and set aside now and forever. many were in tears towards the end of the story, in particular as the stacks of paper got smaller and your last favorite thing and person was taken away. left with nothing, the characters last breath becomes the final point in a process that is coming for us all the teacher said, remember this as you approach each family and home and make them comfortable, and smile, in the little ways you can to replace those favorite objects with new cards in a world always changing but eventually ending.