Hospice. Love. Hope. 

The road through grief and child loss is one I wouldn’t wish on the devil himself. When Marisca collapsed on the 21st of November 2016 and was rushed by her fiancée to the Chris Barnard Emergency Rooms, my life.., well our lives changed completely.  

Marisca died of cancer, five months later the 8th of March 2017. For nine months I carried her close to my heart while she formed her beautiful body inside me, my first child. And for 35 years I watched her growing and forming her beautiful soul. I admired her, I loved her, I fought with her, I fought for her, I cried with her, and we shared chilled glasses of wine when we were happy or sad and for no reason at all.  

Then the journey towards hope and love and healing started. Marisca had metastatic melanoma and the cancer had spread to her brain. At this stage we didn’t know it, but the cancer had also spread to her liver, lungs, bones, and breasts.  

I watched her body growing weaker, first Marisca started to lose the ability to walk.  Then Marisca lost her eyesight and then her hearing. But she never lost her sense of humour, and she had us in fits of laughter over silly little things. Her soul blossomed. 

The oncologist asked if she could send a person representing Hospice to come to see us and soon there was a knock on my door and there stood Maggie, a hospice home care nurse. Maggie, as strong as the storm raging around me.

Maggie was there to help keep Marisca comfortable, not to provide treatment or a cure, but to adjust the medicine when the pain became unbearable and to advise how to manage her fragile body. This was palliative care. I clung to Maggie, not only did Hospice support Marisca, but Hospice also became my pillar, my adviser as how to handle this complete reversal of the natural, the death of my child. 

Hospice is not an institute; it is a world filled with nurses and social workers like Maggie. It is a light house when the storm is raging, pulling you towards safety, not only the person dying, but for the people in waiting as well. They help people, and their loved ones, meaningfully navigate their serious illness journey.

Hospice gives their patients importance and value in the face of death. And to us, the ones left behind, they give the knowledge that grief is love and there is no end to love. Death cannot take love from you. 

Hospice is Dignity and Care, Value and Love. “

Tessa Biagio.