At age 22, Pam Umann’s father died of cancer, alone. Years
later, her best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer and Umann
would drive her back and forth for treatments. Afterwards, she
became a social worker specializing in cancer and AIDS
patients.
Hollister – At age 22, Pam Umann’s father died of cancer, alone. Years later, her best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer and Umann would drive her back and forth for treatments. Afterwards, she became a social worker specializing in cancer and AIDS patients.
Dr. Jerry Griffin served on the medical brigade during Desert Storm, and more than a decade later in emergency triage in Iraq, trying to save the wounded and relieve the dying.
While their experiences were decidedly different, the underlying theme of the human suffering and strength they witnessed brought them together to write, “The Last Day of Winter: Secrets from the Seasons of Dying.” The book is designed to help the terminally ill, and families of the dying, know that wherever they are on their journey toward death, they are not alone.
Part of Umann’s motivation to write the book was the death of her father. No one was in the room when he took his last breath. No one was holding his hand.
“It was handled very poorly,” she explained. “My dad shouldn’t have had to die alone. It wasn’t because there was a lack of love in our family, it was because we didn’t know what to do.”
Umann considers the book a tribute to her father, as well as an apology to him.
“The most difficult thing when you have someone you love (dying) is to put down some of the extraneous anger, so that moment you can just be with them and not try to make it better,” Umann explained. “When you’re losing someone you love, you feel totally alone. And you are.”
But the grief is something universally felt.
The book is a combination of stories collected from real San Benito County, Bay Area and South Santa Clara County residents the authors treated throughout the years from working together at Saint Louise Regional Hospital and Memorial Hospital in Salinas. “The Last Day of Winter” is a blend of stories with a medical perspective about what to expect to feel physiologically and emotionally during the final season of one’s life.
The authors stress that death is not just a physical dying, but a spiritual and emotional process.
“We were hoping the book would have a feel of someone walking you through it,” Umann said.
However, Griffin had other reasons for writing it.
“One of the reasons we possibly wrote the book was to answer our own questions (about death),” he said.
Griffin has doctorates in both medicine and pharmacology. He has served as a hospice director since 1989 and worked in emergency rooms – both makeshift on the battlefield abroad and in hospitals.
“He has seen death in all its forms,” Umann explained.
Griffin believes the hardest thing for people to come to terms with when told they are dying is that they will die without doing all the things they thought they wanted to do in life.
He wanted to show them another perspective.
“To get folks to realize that we’re really spiritual beings with a short time on earth, rather than the common notion that we’re physical beings on this earth,” he said.
A book signing will be held Feb. 23 at 5pm in the Saint Louise Hospital lobby. Books will be available for purchase and given to the first 20 individuals who attend.
