Seven Days of Hospice: A Memoir

D. M. Wilmes
iUniverse (2007)
ISBN 9780595463732
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views (1/08)


In “Seven Days of Hospice: A Memoir,” D. M. Wilmes has written a beautiful tribute to his mother, a demonstration of a family’s love, and an inspiring story written to help other families confronted with facing the final days of a loved one’s life.

Elaine Wilmes, mother of six, was diagnosed with breast cancer at a time when she was free of her responsibilities of motherhood. After a year of treatment her doctors pronounced her free of cancer.  The cancer reappeared as bone cancer and then developed into brain cancer.

Wilmes candidly relates his mother’s story, her victories, the setbacks, and the final days in hospice care. He openly shares his emotions, frustrations, and reactions to caregivers, his own family, and in conversations and bargaining with God.

I personally found Wilmes’ account very insightful.  I was living out-of-state when my mother had cancer surgery after a five-year remission. I did not have the privilege or experience of being with her during those final days but I related to Elaine’s final heavenly smile before succumbing to death. My mother told the nursing attendant “The angels are coming for me,” in her final minutes.

Although Wilmes writes from his Catholic experience, this is a book that crosses denominational lines and will be helpful and encouraging to readers of every faith. The spiritual insights he shares are universal in experience and, when coming from a layman’s perspective, are especially helpful to the male reader.

I have read many books on death and dying, the stages of grief, and on counseling others in their times of grief and found them helpful. Wilmes’ account of his mother s disease, her courage, and her final days of hospice care add another whole dimension to my understanding of the dread disease of cancer and what one might expect in hospice care.
 
Wilmes’ writing is poignant and fervent.  “Seven Days of Hospice: A Memoir” is a book I can highly recommend to anyone whose loved one is afflicted with terminal cancer.  It offers hope, comfort, and vital information that will possibly save heartache and frustration during those final precious days of the life of their loved one.

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