Inspired Magazine

In Maggie’s words ...
What inspires me
I get inspired by kindness – wherever I see it, hear about it
or sense it, it just makes my heart expand and I cry tears of
pure joy. I feel blessed to have been gifted my four sons … so
I am also always deeply grateful.
Best advice
Well, I have two pieces of advice that I have come to live
by. Don’t just believe in miracles — expect them! Secondly,
never put anything off – do it now ‘just in case’. In my death
and dying work I have met so many people who thought
they had so much time – to play more, to have great
holidays, to work on a dream …
After recovering from what turned out to
be a hormonal dysfunction that mimicked
a miscarriage, Maggie began to regard the
experience as a blessing. “I was so grateful to
be alive,” she says. “I started to drop the little
meaningless stuff. There were days I’d leave the
washing and go to the beach or the park. I got
used to the noise, I got used to the chaos. I let the
kids put their own clothes on – I didn’t care if they
were dressed badly or I hadn’t wiped all the mess
off their faces. Who cares if they’ve got Vegemite
on them? I encouraged their own thinking. I
started letting them do more for themselves. And
I discovered that they were wiser than I thought.
They were more capable than I realised.”
POWER OF BEING REAL
No longer teaching full-time while she brought
up her boys, Maggie sought other ways to fill her
time and fulfil her search for a sense of purpose.
She came across a brochure calling for volunteers
at a palliative care hospice. “I just thought ‘who the
hell would do this’ and threw the letter in the bin,”
she says. “But about four nights later I woke up in
the night absolutely crystal clear and thought ‘you
need to do this’.”
She signed up, did the training and started the
volunteer role as a bereavement coordinator.
While she was uncomfortable with the physical
and medical care, she came to realise the role she
could play by simply being there, being honest,
accepting suffering, and avoiding the temptation
for false cheeriness. “I had a knack for making
people comfortable, but without the bullshit, not
sympathy but empathy,” she says. “I could sit with
people quite comfortably in complete silence.”
The role also taught her the value of honesty
and of people’s remarkable capacity to withstand
suffering. She remembers a 10-year-old boy with
a brain tumour who was nearing his final days – a
boy the same age as her oldest
son – who helped her learn the
power of being real. “He was the
most beautiful, bright, shining,
caring boy … and every day I’d
think ‘shit I’m having to put a
fake face on’,” she says. “Then one
day I just said to him ‘you know I’m
actually sad that you’re so sick. I don’t
want to pretend that I’m happy. I can still
laugh with you but I just want you to know
that I am sad’ and he turned to me and said
‘thanks for being honest’. He really appreciated
that. That’s where I started my resilience
understanding. I realised we don’t need to resist
the suffering, we have the ability to cope with the
big shit.”
“Inside every
single child there’s
this pulsing place
of potential.”
MAGGIE DENT
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