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could be in any situation. In fact, on many occasions, people even say
they've seen a deceased. l
The Palliative Care Unit of 51. Clare's Mercy Hospital in 51. John's to this date
remains the only extant one in the province. Admission to the Unit is on a doctor's
testimony of terminal disease with death likely to occur within three months. Such patients
thus are in full consciousness of their tenninal condition, and join the Unit out of free
choice. The care and attention they receive is supportive and paslOral as much as medical
and largely provided by trained volunteer hands. Volunteers perform no "work" as slIch
but mostly keep company to the patients and their family. who, as they suggest, need the
greater moral support. My interviewees' evocations suggested a degree of personal
knowledge and attachment to patients which perhaps largely explains their familiarity with
their "dreams of angels or heaven" and "visions" of dead relatives.
It is also personal knowledge of her infonnants, Bennen declares, that enabled her to
infer their worldview, one within which communication with departed ones was
rationalized in tenns of faith in "heavenly protection and family unity":2
The sphere of operation of the medieval revenant was a world of religiolls
and moral obligation, rites and observances: that of the present-day
'witness' is an orderly, caring, domestic sphere, renecting an orderly,
caring creation supervised by a personal GocP
As for these women, Christian faith underlies the local interpretation of these "presences."
Granting the Catholic affiliation of SI. Clare's Mercy hospital, the nurses only remembered
two sworn atheists in ten years, both of which "died in faith." The following prayer was
composed in the Unit; it is usually recited with patients at their request and at the moment of
death:
We lurn to You, Lord Jesus, who promised 10 be Wilh us when we gather
in Your Name.
We turn to You, who suffered and died for all people.
We tum to You, who promised eternal life to all who believe in YOLl.
We tum 10 You, who are the way, the truth and the life.
We claim Your presence here and we ask You to make this moment one,
nol of darkness--bllt of light and grace.
Make this momenl holy. Be with Your brother (sister) in his (her) hour of
need; be his (her) refuge, strength and hope. Strengthen his (her) faith
1Unc