"A special sort of person"

“Wow. Takes a special sort of person to do that work.”

This has become the well-meaning phrase I most often hear when I share with people that I am spending my final MSW practicum in palliative and end-of-life (EOL) care. Coming to this work from decades spent working in abortion care, it is a refrain I have grown accustomed to, along with an attendant discomfort that seems to present itself with a shift in the tone of voice or body language of the person I am speaking with. Generally, there is an assumption that “the work” itself is difficult, imbued with sadness or an emotional severity that makes it hard to bear or taxing to carry on with somehow.

I wish people could have witnessed and experienced this palliative care community (aka, a whole hoard of “special sorts” of people!) at the 4^th International Research Seminar on Public Health & Palliative Care – it would be an antidote to the notion that palliative care is inherently heavy, dour, and melancholic.

As a part of my practicum work, I was tasked with helping the ePAC team at the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health install a zine-making station for seminar attendees. The intention around the zine-making table was multifold: to offer a glimpse into the work that ePAC’s inner city action team does alongside community members; to offer a space for embodied respite; and, to create the opportunity for collective reflection around the palliative-oriented question, how do we care for each other?

As conference attendees came to the table to reflect upon the question and contribute their hand-crafted responses to it, many of them talked amongst each other. Many were silent. But the people I had the good fortune to speak with, whether they were aware of it or not, taught me a lot about “the sort of person” who works in palliative care spaces.

I learned that many people do come to the work after having a profound experience with death, loss, or grief. While at the table, people shared seemingly with a considered ease, wisdom, and vulnerability about what they had grieved or were grieving. The loss of a partner. A pet. The climate. A patient. A friend. Mothers. Fathers. Palestine. War. The world.

If this part sounds heavy, dour and melancholic – it’s because it is. But, as with most things, it isn’t the whole story.

The people I spoke with during the conference were absolutely attuned to life, in terms of both what is life-enriching and life-giving. This was demonstrable to me in various ways – from witnessing the jokes, hugs and hollering laughter shared amongst colleagues, to discussion of prioritizing pleasure over work obligations, to the collective response to the question posed to seminar attendees at the zine table.

Overwhelmingly, the collective zine response to the question “how do we care for each other?” demonstrated that this group of people had a keen understanding of what it takes not only to resource a good life, but also an awareness that a good death requires the same ingredients: access to housing, food security, a sense of belonging, safety and, without a doubt, love. Of the many nurses, doctors, scholars, social workers, death doulas and more that I spoke with, only one called themselves an activist outright, but in one way or another, these life-giving resources are actively being fought for by every single person whom I met.

On the last evening of the seminar, I got to tag-along with a group of seminar attendees for a post-conference confab session, to say our goodbyes over some snacks and drinks. It was total darkness outside by the time I realized that hours had gone by. None of us could stop talking about our passions, palliative care-related and otherwise, and I am certain there was more riotous laughter than there was actual conversation happening by that point. Even more hours went by, and we closed-down the restaurant, managing to soak up every last second with one another before flying (or taxiing) back to our respective places in the world. We hugged as though we were old friends, even making plans to see each other again as soon as life allowed.

As we parted, I thought of Dr. Kelli Stajduhar’s words that she shared on the last day of the conference. She said that attendees of the EAPC conferences and seminars often say “I’ve found my people.”

If being with, and belonging to, this community of palliative care workers is what it means to have found my people, if it means that I am the “special sort of person” people often assume me to be, I only know that I would be lucky to count myself amongst the people I met here. 

Mercedes Calma has spent the majority of her life working in reproductive healthcare in Canada. She is a passionate advocate for equity in healthcare, with a specific focus on abortion care, palliative care, and critical harm reduction. Additionally, Mercedes is interested in the therapeutic potential of engaging with the arts as a healing practice. While her home will always be Toronto, she is currently a MSW student at UVic — privileged and grateful to be living, learning, and unlearning on beautiful Lək̓ʷəŋən Territory.