Sandie King: Living and Working by a Question By Deborah Burke ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

   “Every day Sandie King asks herself this question: “What do I need to die to today – before I die – so I can live more fully?”

    “It's been a life-changing question,” says the 50-year-old single mom who first heard the question when she enrolled in Richard Grove's course, The Sacred Art of Dying. After leaving a successful 20-year career in human resource management because she felt “a tug” to do something different with her life and work, Sandie pondered the question as she grappled with “What next?”

    Sandie considered various professions. Eventually, she followed the wisdom offered by a good friend and enrolled in the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Program offered by Southwest General Health Care Center. The CPE program is a rigorous, 14-month-long program consisting of 1,200 hours of clinical work and 400 hours of supervisory and group work for each of the program's four units. It was there that she heard the question again. She has since made it her mantra.

    Once enrolled in the CPE program, Sandie knew that she had found the work she was meant to do. She graduated from the program in August 2005 and is now the Spiritual Care coordinator for terminally ill patients at Southwest General Health Care Center's Hospice in Strongsville.

    As a spiritual-care professional, Sandie has come to be intimately aware of how people die. “Our culture can ensure that we die without physical pain,” she reflects. “However, we are so much more than physical beings. Spirituality is central to what makes us human, so we can also have spiritual pain. This is why spiritual care is vital to the hospice philosophy and mission. I help patients work through pain, frustration, fear and confusion at the end of life.”

    By exploring their spirituality – their spiritual pain – people can gain more awareness of what needs to be healed in their own hearts, Sandie will tell you. Once that happens, they can let go of life with a greater sense of peace, fulfillment and grace. “But don't ask me what I mean by 'grace',” Sandie says quickly. “It is hard for me to define, but I know it when I see it. It is unmistakable.”

    Mostly she listens. “I have no agenda when I am with patients. Rather, I listen to what they say, how they say it, what words they use, what they don't say and the kind of energy that is around what they are saying.” Her work is not about solving a patient's life problems. “Spiritual care is about meeting people where they are,” Sandie says, “and supporting them through the dying process.”

    Sandie has learned a lot from her work, especially about the effects of spiritual wellness on physical and emotional health. “It's incredible what we humans can do to ourselves,” she says. She recalls a patient who had congestive heart failure and kept using the words, “My heart is broken.” Sandie helped the patient come to realize that she had been unable to grieve and let go of something that had happened 60 years previously. “I have come to the conclusion that we die as we live. If our lives are full of angst and struggle, that angst and struggle will be present at our deaths. If our lives have been about letting go and letting be, our deaths also will be,” she says. “In the end, none of the stuff we hold on to so tightly matters at all.”

    Sandie, who grew up in New Jersey, has both a bachelor's and a master's degree in psychology, the latter from New York University. She spent 20 years in human-resources management with Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy's department stores. When she felt that tug and decided to leave her profession behind to become a chaplain, her family worried that leaving a lucrative career would have a detrimental financial impact on her and her 10-year-old daughter Kendall.

    “I had very rare moments of hitting the panic button,” Sandie says, “of wondering what the heck did I think I was doing!” She is thankful for good friends who continually affirm her decision and help her weather those few predictable times of doubt and fear. “If you want to make a change, you have to be prepared to take a risk,” she says, “and believe that the journey is leading you somewhere.”

    Sandie says she does not think of her work as a job. “I love what I do because it feels like it's my life's work – it is the work I was meant to do.”

Sandie lives in Lakewood with her 10-year-old daughter Kendall and their cat, Bucket. She facilitates a Grief and Expressive Arts Workshop and is currently working on The Art and Science of Forgiveness. She will also co-facilitate a retreat/workshop on creating a “Soul Storybook” in June 2006, which will be held on two consecutive Saturdays (June 3 and 10) at the Kairos Retreat House on the grounds of The Blessed Foundation in Medina, Ohio. Sandie also hosts and facilitates the annual Artist's Way retreat at Lakeside each October. She can be reached at SKingx@aol.com.

Photo by Bob Perkoski, www.Perkoski.com.