Philip Y. Kao PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

Tacoma Pastures and into hospice. For others who happen to stay at Tacoma Pastures
for their last days, a ‘comfort cart’ is given to family members and visitors, consisting of a
teacart with cookies, hot drinks, a tissue box, aromatic candles, and a small portable
stereo with a selection of relaxation CDs.
Immediately after a resident dies, ‘post mortem care’ at Tacoma Pastures ensues. This
involves a series of tasks that have to be completed. Firstly, two nurses must see the
resident and make an official death pronouncement, as a kind of speech act. Secondly,
medical equipment such as an oxygen concentrator must be unplugged and removed.
Caregivers have to bathe the body and cover up any wounds with a Band-Aid. After
dressing the body in a new set of clothes taken from the resident’s closet, the body has to
be laid on the bed, making sure that the eyes are closed, and that dentures are inserted if
applicable. A pillow must also be placed under the head and a rolled towel must be
placed under the chin to keep the mouth closed. All of this is done so that when the
mortician arrives, the body is then ready to be placed into a black bag. The final thing for
the caregiver to do is to place the Tacoma Pastures ‘Memory Quilt’ over the body so that
the black bag does not show. Once the body is placed into the hearse, the caregiver takes
the memory quilt away and turns it into the laundry department to be washed, folded,
and returned to the nurse’s station. A framed note with the deceased person’s name is
placed next to an electric candle in the public space just outside the resident’s room.
The Tacoma Pastures’s memory quilt is not really a patchwork quilt, but a striped
coloured blanket of greens, blues and yellows purchased at the local department store.
Some people at Tacoma Pastures assert that the memory quilt is an old fashioned and
hand made quilt, while others maintain that it is just a white blanket stitched with the
word Tacoma Pastures. When I first learned about the memory quilt, I asked one the
med techs about it. She wasn’t sure what the quilt looked like but explained that it was
used as a courtesy. In her words: “So that when you drag the black bag out, it is unsightly
for the residents to be seeing bodies hauled away in day time.” A licensed practical nurse
(LPN) who works with the head nurse said to me that: “The memory quilt was a way to
say good bye for transition. I suppose it is tradition too. It is used to keep comfort so that
even when they are taken away, they are still transitioned in comfort and in Tacoma
Pastures’s care.”
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