Educational Media Reviews Online

Lessons for the Living captures insights on death through the varied stories and experiences of hospice volunteers in New York City. Working with hospice patients going through the final stage of life, the volunteers explain what drew them to this type of work and how the patients have impacted their lives. Their hospice work began at differing ages, for a variety of reasons and they’ve been at it for differing lengths of time. The volunteers in the film are both men and women and their backgrounds cover a wide spectrum.

They all have wisdom to impart on being a hospice volunteer, even those that have only been participating in the program a relatively short amount of time. The two stories that stand out most in this reviewer’s mind are the two that frame the piece: the first, Maeling, a relatively new volunteer, and the last, Kathleen, a volunteer for 10 years. These two very different women expose an identical part of themselves on film—something that is summed up beautifully by Maeling—“you become comfortable with your own presence in the company of someone who is dying.” In Maeling’s case it is learning to accept that comfortable feeling. For Kathleen, who speaks from the unique perspective of not only being a hospice volunteer but also a hospice patient, that understanding shines forth from her eyes. The filmmaker made a brilliant choice to end the film with Kathleen—this amazingly strong woman embodies the familiar slogan that hospice is about living.

This sentiment is echoed by other volunteers as they each recount the ways they bring their unique personalities, talents, and gifts to their work. Between the volunteer stories, the filmmaker brings in lush nature shots, urban cityscapes, and transcendent skies. Seemingly trite at first, these breaks between stories grew on this reviewer and provide some time to process what Kristin, and Jim, and Leon have said. At times, Lessons for the Living seems like an introduction to a training session for hospice volunteers. However, the value for the classroom is in the nuggets of truth the volunteers share about their experiences and the contrast of what dying really is to how we treat it in our society. It’s an interesting journey on film, mirroring our own life journey. The 50 minute version is a little long but can easily be tailored for classroom and clinical use by choosing individual stories from the main menu. A 25 min abridged version of the DVD is available, as well as a streaming version from Amazon to download to own or to rent. Library collections in psychology, social work, nursing and other health sciences will find this an interesting addition.