Episode Summary
In this profound episode of Palliative Talks, grief specialist Eugene Dufour joins host Kath Murray to explore the emotional weight caregivers carry in palliative and long-term care. Through powerful stories and practical wisdom, Eugene shares how rituals, reflective practice, and mentorship can help care providers process grief and stay grounded. From memory gardens to mindfulness bells, he offers personal strategies for transforming pain into purpose. Together, they discuss how acknowledging death and grief can deepen care, foster resilience, and bring humanity to the forefront—even in the most challenging settings.
Episode Guest
For the past 46 years Eugene has dedicated his career to the provision of excellence in trauma work, grief counseling and providing hospice palliative care. From coast to coast in Canada on a national, provincial, and regional level, as well as extending abroad to the US and Ireland, Eugene is highly respected as he shares his expertise and passion.
Through education, advocacy, best practices and direct service, Eugene has and continues to be, a pillar in the provision of psychosocial, spiritual and bereavement support with individuals, families. and caregivers.
Among the various awards and recognitions Eugene has received throughout his career, he has received the Commemorative Medal for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2nd Golden Jubilee by the Governor General of Canada for his work in HPC. He has also been named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International for his involvement in establishing Rotary Hospice of Stratford Perth. In April of 2022 Eugene was presented with the Dr. Dorothy Lay Award of Excellence in Hospice Palliative Care.
Whether being deployed to ground zero at 911, assisting First Responders involved in Canada’s worst mass murders, supporting LTC staff through the multiple Covid 19 deaths, advocating for hospice palliative best practices, and attending and tending to individuals and families through the emotional and ambiguous journey of end of life.
Eugene approaches all he is called to do from a place of being called. A place he enters with the utmost compassion, dignity, humility and respect for the sacredness of the human spirit.
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Transcript
[00:00:11] Kath Murray: Hello, Eugene.
[00:00:13] Eugene Dufour: Good afternoon. Good to see you again, Kath.
[00:00:15] Kath: And you. And you. I’m excited about our conversation today. I’m going to start by introducing you. And I’m just going to, just carry over all the paper. I just have to put on my, my extra muscles to carry this big file with me because you’ve done so many things. For the past 43 years, Eugene has dedicated his career to the provision of excellence in trauma work, grief counselling, and providing hospice palliative care. From coast to coast in Canada on a national, provincial and regional level, as well as extending abroad to the US and Ireland, Eugene is highly respected as he shares his expertise and passion. Through education, advocacy, best practice and direct service, Eugene has and continues to be a pillar in the provision of psychosocial, spiritual and bereavement support with individuals, families and caregivers.
Among the various awards and recognitions Eugene has received throughout his career, he has received the Commemorative Medal for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth Second Golden Jubilee by the Governor-General of Canada for his work in hospice, palliative care.
Congrats!
He has also been named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International, for his involvement in establishing Rotary Hospice of Stratford Perth.
In April of 2022, Eugene was presented with the Doctor Dorothy Lay Award of Excellence in Hospice and Palliative Care, which is a wonderful honour, Eugene. Whether being deployed to Ground Zero at 9/11, assisting first responders involved in Canada’s worst mass murders, supporting long term care staff through the multiple COVID 19 deaths, advocating for hospice palliative care best practices, and attending and tending to individuals and families through the emotional and ambiguous journey of end of life. Eugene’s been there. Eugene approaches all he has called to do, from a place of being called, a place he enters with the utmost compassion, dignity, humility, and respect for the sacredness of the human spirit. Pretty special, Eugene.
[00:02:00] Eugene: Thank you. And like I said, whenever I hear that introduction, it sounds like I can’t hold down a job. Your library behind you is quite phenomenal,
[00:02:10] Kath: and I understand you’ve had some comments from friends who’ve helped you move those books.
[00:02:20] Eugene: Yes, I had a buddy who helped me pack this library when I moved from Saint Mary’s to Bayfield, and halfway through he said, “man, you got a depressing library.” And I was able to say, “oh, it’s anything but depressing.” I’ve been involved with a little over 7200 deaths in the last 45 years, and everyone’s been sacred. When you’re assisting people as they make the transition from this world to the next, how they see it, it is just a sacred time. And I’ve just felt so honoured and privileged to be able to walk with people. I- I never say I work with the dying. I walk with them, and it’s always walking beside or behind. Never in front. And you’re right, Kath, there are teachers, and I’ve just learned and continue to learn so much about hospice, palliative care and this journey.
[00:03:50] Kath: I want to start by asking you to define a palliative approach. How do you integrate or what is a palliative approach to care?
[00:03:55] Eugene: For me, we’re- it’s taken from the very wise Indian quote that “we’re a house of four rooms, an emotional, a social, a physical, spiritual.” And unless we go into each room, even if it’s just to air it out, we’re not whole. You know, health care’s in the business of curing. Where hospice, palliative care and grief work and trauma-trauma work. We’re in the business of healing, which means helping somebody feel whole again. So that’s my approach. Is how can I walk with people to help them feel whole again, feel reconnected to themselves, in dealing with that spirit? Whenever I do an assessment, I ask people, “so how are you coping with this spiritually?” And they often say, “oh, I don’t go to church.” I’ll say, “well, that’s not quite what I mean.” And I say, “spirit means breath, and soul means from the depth of you.” So how is this palliative care illness affecting that vital breath that comes right from the depths of you? And how can we resolve a few issues? Celebrate some achievements? Address pain and suffering, and then help people integrate that. So, that’s the approach I take. And it’s always an approach of-of- listening and learning.
I’m always taking the approach of being the student. You know, I noticed that, when I was taking notes, as soon as I go like this, I’m disconnected, so I don’t take notes anymore. And at the end of the session, I say to people, “okay, I have to do a note for your chart, let’s do it together.” And that has just been a rich experience. And I was always trained to listen, to respond. And I discovered that when I’m listening to respond, I’m thinking of a response. I’m not thinking about- or actively listening. So I’ve now really trained to listen, to understand. And that’s taken a long time to make that transition. But it’s been very, very rich and helpful.
[00:06:07] Kath: I think you’ve talked about the incredible gift of team, and how team have also helped you to do that.
[00:06:17] (Eugene): Yes. You know, as we work, walk with people that are encountering life-threatening illness. You know, complicated grief, trauma.
You know, we were walking with them at a point when they are no longer who they have been and have not yet reborn into whom they will be. We meet them. That place between no longer and not yet. No longer and not yet. That is very difficult for the people that we walk with, but it’s very difficult for us as caregivers. So therefore, it’s so important to be a part of team. I remember when we established the palliative care unit at Stratford, I would go in on it on Saturdays and Sundays and, just to check out the clients, the residents and the patients are doing and the staff. And finally, the couple of staff pulled me aside and said, you know, we really appreciate you checking us in—checking in on us. However, if you keep this up, you’re going to burnout and you’re going to be no good to us. And then secondly, it kind of gets a sense that you don’t trust us. And that was the birthing of an incredible team where we had the freedom to approach people with our strengths. And maybe some of our weaknesses. And so a team is so important that you just can’t do this. There’s no room for Lone Rangers. And we all bring different gifts and we’re all going to connect differently. So whenever I’m part of a hospice palliative care team, I really push for health care aides, PSWs, housekeeping, food, nutritional services, maintenance, whoever’s been involved, if they’ve been in that room and have made a connection, they need to be around and that’s what you get this rich, rich experience around that. I always—whenever someone says, “oh, I’m just a healthcare aide” or “just a PSW,” I always say, “it’s the power of your presence, the fact that you’re there. And listening to their story of suffering, of journey, that’s what’s really important.” And I think that’s what—that’s why team is so crucial in giving them that aspect.
[00:08:28,791] (Kath): That is such a beautiful statement as the power of your presence.
[00:08:34,208] (Eugene): Yeah. We worked with a young woman that was dying of cystic fibrosis, and she had numerous attempts to get a double lung heart transplant. And because it had spread through her whole system, it just wasn’t possible. And her dad was her best supporter. And I remember at team rounds and she kept on saying, “I need a bus ticket,” “I need a bus ticket.” And we really felt that it was a symbolic language of asking her dad permission for her to die. I was the one that had the least connection to him. So if I got fired, it was—it was okay. The nurses couldn’t get fired. They were too intimately involved. And so when I went in and said, you know, talked about the bus ticket, he said “you’re giving her too much morphine.” And I said, “well, I really think she needs permission for you—from you to die.” And he got very angry at me. He was still looking for a research centre to do the double lung heart transplant. He fired me, so I’d never come back in the room. He, He was there. He stormed out. He came back. You could hear a lot of crying and wailing. And then he left. And when we went into the room, there she was holding a $20 bill to buy the bus ticket. That’s the best he could do. But it was such a movement. And that wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t the team suggesting what’s the best way to approach them so that we don’t destroy his hope, but that we’re able to connect to him? And he made that wonderful gesture of the $20 bill.
[00:10:09,625] (Kath): One of the things that you are are so good at addressing and speaking of is just the value and the benefit of silence.
[00:10:21,083] (Eugene): You know, I was, I was tempted, you know, the—the research of that, it takes 8 to 12 seconds for someone to respond to a question. Well, so for a French-Canadian social worker, that’s painful to keep my mouth shut that long. But you think about it, that’s really important. So when you held that sacred silence there for a couple of seconds, there’s part of me that, “oh, I should be saying something. I should be saying something.” But the silence is very, very sacred. So we can never underestimate the presence, and that sacred silence. That just is being respectful of the grounds that they’re walking on. You know, we’re—we’re on a journey with them through the wilderness of the soul, but we’re not responsible to find the way out. And that’s what presence is about, is holding space that we don’t need to have all the answers. So often when I’ll talk to people in general, “I can’t stand funerals. I hate going to them.” I don’t know what to say. You don’t need to say anything. You just need to be there. And how rich and powerful that can be.
[00:11:30,333] (Kath): Yeah, yeah. Tell me about the well—the wilderness of the soul.
[00:11:34,708] (Eugene): Yeah. You know, and that’s where that, you know, the—the vital breath from the depths of people, very much connect to that. So anybody that’s listening to this podcast and you’re sitting with people that are making this journey, be aware of that. It’s not a social visit that they’re requiring of us. It’s to walk with that wilderness of a soul. So there’s all kinds of—of trauma that they need to relook at, and to rework. I was telling Kath the other day that, my mum died when I was 19.
And then a few years ago, my dad died at age 90, and I took the compassionate leave program to be with him. And, part of being with him, we had a friend of ours who’s quite a sewer, and she took one of his shirts, and, she made these teddy bears for myself and my sisters, and my dad was able to sign it. This is the first time that she’s created a memory bear when somebody was still alive. And— and so we just spent some rich, rich time about that. And this was a shirt that he always wore. So it had so much meaning and purpose to us. But what we found is that we really needed to rework, my mom’s grief, death, the grief around her death some 40 years previously.
So we just—we just don’t grieve in the present moment. And that was really brought home. Luckily, it was early in my career. I was at a long term care facility, and the recreational therapist who did the entrance interview had a question to all the new residents. Have you ever experienced the death of a child? So I had this rich, rich information. I went through all the charts, and I found 12 women that were cognitively able to participate in a group. And we did it the Friday before Mother’s Day.
And I thought, no more than 45 minutes. I don’t want to tire them out. 2.5 hours later, we were still going at it. And it was the one that was 96. She said, “you know, it’s been 72 years since I’ve talked about my daughter. This is going to be the best Mother’s Day ever.” We just don’t grieve in the present moment. We grieve in the past and the future. So just being aware of that, being comfortable with uncomfortable topics when somebody says, “I haven’t talked to my son in 20 years,” that’s an invitation to step in instead of stepping out. And then what can we do as a team, if anything, to maybe reunite? And if you can’t reunite, allow that person to to reprocess it before they die.
[00:14:33] (Kath): You’re talking about the dying process as being such a time of growth, possible growth?
[00:14:41] (Eugene): Yes. You know, there’s misery and mystery. The misery is the diagnosis, the pain, the suffering, the painful goodbyes. But that leads to mystery. And I don’t mean mystery in the religious sense, but mystery of how is this journey of misery affecting meaning and purpose? And I think that is why we folks that are doing the psychosocial spiritual aspect of hospice palliative care, we need to rely on our docs and nurses to give really good physical care, pain and symptom management so that you’re then able to do the other types of work that needs to be done. And so when you do that, it’s just so stepping into a person’s suffering. And that’s why some of the suffering can be so overwhelming. And that’s why team is so important to- to hand off to everybody and to- to touch base to make sure, that we’re all doing okay and providing really good support.
[00:15:43] (Kath): That is so important. Yesterday I talked- or the other day I talked with the Nadine Persaud, and I talked about the value of having a social worker, counsellor on the team and how how incredibly valuable that is, partly because when nothing is working and we’re not able to solve whatever’s happening, sometimes the piece that we’re missing, is brought to light by a social worker. So as much as I honour that and honour that role, I also, as you are talking, think about, nurses, personal support workers, everyone else on the team and in particular those at night shift.
[00:16:27] (Eugene): You know, our nurses and PSW’s and health care aides, when they’re helping the bathe- the client bathe and changing bed, the hands on, you know, people need touch and appropriate touch. And so when they do that, they can make that connection. That’s really great. I worked with a veteran. He was 92, dying of prostate cancer. And him and his wife lived in this beautiful farmhouse, and he loved to sit there and look at the fence line and see the deer. And he had a bunch of bird feeders and, for the first- and he said, his wife was saying he’s having horrible nightmares and night terrors, and that’s why I got the referral to see him. But I would sit. Oh, it was about five sessions of just sitting with him, talking about the birds and- and the deer and how powerful that was. And then the trauma came out. He he lied about his age, and joined, the Army, when he was in England at 17, when they discovered that he was 17, they said, well, we can’t put you in the front lines, but you can drive ammunitions there. And so when he was driving ammunitions there, a mortar, hit his jeep and he hit a piece of shrapnel, severed a major artery in his leg. Lucky a soldier came by and like the little Dutchman in the dike, put his finger in the hole and got him to a military base hospital and saved his life. But he had other injuries, and the war was over. And, he felt horribly guilty that if “I would have been able to stay active, the war would have ended sooner.” And not so many of my comrades. But that wasn’t it. He wasn’t alone in the Jeep. He was with another 17 year old good friend of his that died in the explosion. And I remember his wife saying, “Charlie, you never told me.” And so when he was then transferred to the hospice to die, he asked to see me one last time. And he was very hard of hearing. And when I walked in, he immediately took out his hearing aids. “I don’t want to process anything else. We’ve done that. This— I just wanted to say thank you and goodbye.” That was so powerful that we really need to let our clients guide that. And he wanted to make sure that I’m not revisiting this trauma again. We did it. This was going to allow me to die in peace around that. So, and that’s where, you know, I’ve had a— I saw a PSW couple of days ago. She said “I had a a patient say, ‘I’ve never told anybody this before. I was sexually abused as a child, and I don’t want to to take that to my death. I want to forgive this person and let this go.” And she panicked and said, “okay, I’ll get the social— ‘no, no, I’ve chosen you to tell, you’re going to be the carrier of this story. So that it’s off my chest, you find a place to put it. But this is good enough for me. I just needed.'”
And it was because of the trust that they built up. So we never know when we become the messengers or, or the keepers of the story.
[00:19:59] (Kath): Eugene, as the keepers of the stories, how do we— what do we— what do you do with those stories? You’re at a place where you’re able to turn the stories and change them enough to make them so that you’re— it’s possible for you to share them. But I’m a PSW or I’m a nurse, and I have this incredibly sweet and intimate visit with someone where— where they confide something so important to me. How do I carry that?
[00:20:31] (Eugene): Yeah, there’s a couple of things. There’s there’s some rituals that we all need to develop. You know, I had, a manager that had given me a book, and she was like, “I need you to write down the names of all your clients. Patients, their ages and the date that they died, and bring it in to supervision.” So I said, “sure.” So I dutifully did that, brought in to supervision. And she never asked me about this book. And so when I left Saint Joe’s after for five years, said, “oh, so what was this book?” She was. “I just needed to make sure you knew what was on your plate.” So I kept that up until about a year ago. And that’s why I know that there was 7322 names on that. And I think it’s very important that we have a little ritual. Every Friday I have this memory garden that I write down the names of the people that I’ve walked with, put it in a container, burn it, and then it becomes part of this memory garden so that I’ve gotten it from here to here, out here. And I’ve respectfully done something to it,
and with it, so that I’m not carrying it. And the other thing is, we need to connect with a mentor. Not necessarily supervision. Supervision is important, but a mentor, a
very wise, wise person that we can just say, “I’m carrying this and I need another human being to share that with.” So that’s very important. So there’s two aspects to that reaching out to find a mentor. And then I think we’re being called to be mentors. We often shy away from that. But we have to be mentors for staff coming up to be able to— so that they can carry on this very sacred work.
[00:22:22] (Kath): Beautiful, beautiful. When we integrate a palliative approach, when we talk about death, loss and grief, in some ways this makes caregiving easier, and in some ways that makes it harder. Can you reflect on that?
[00:22:43] (Eugene): Yeah, I always say to people, you know, there’s no right way or wrong way to go through this. There’s just your way. And I’m here to discover that way with you. So I think that that’s really important. And, Frank Ostaseski has this beautiful model, the Five Invitations, and he says the first one is “Don’t Wait”. If someone brings it up, I never wait to the next session. It’s an invitation to deal with it right now. Welcome everything, push away nothing. So I need to make sure that I know where my soft spots are or where my triggers are so that I’m not stopping the person to go forward in what would be important, bringing the whole self, the physical emotion of the social and the spiritual. And I love this one. Find a place in the middle of things to rest. That is crucial about that. And then cultivate don’t know mind, my favourite- the one that I’m best at. Because, they don’t want expertise. They want presence. They want us to journey with them. And that’s what’s so crucial around that.
[00:23:52] (Kath): Eugene, back up to the one just before that.
[00:23:56] (Eugene): Yeah.
[00:23:57] (Kath): About taking time in the middle of? What was that?
[00:24:00] (Eugene): I’ll find a place of rest in the middle of things. So that’s where it. In the middle of things. So, that we can’t go at a fast pace with all of this, that there needs to be reflection around that. And I think one of the greatest things the nursing profession has done is when they included, many years ago, a reflective practice, as part of the college and a part of that that has really changed things for many professions. They jumped on it because they see how important it is. We need to have that reflective practice to say, okay, what did I do? What impact did it have on me, and how can I do it better or differently or more compassionately around that aspect? You know, sympathy is I see that you hurt. Empathy is I see that you hurt, and I care. But compassion is I see that you hurt, I care, but I’m called to do something about it. The hospice palliative care approach is compassion and action. Doing something- doing something about it around that you’re doing.
[00:25:13] (Kath): Eugene, Can you can you say that again? Sympathy, empathy and compassion.
[00:25:15] (Eugene): Sympathy is I see that you hurt. And all are appropriate at times. Empathy is I see that you’re hurt and I moved a little bit farther, so I care about it. But compassion is I see that you hurt, I care, but I’m going to do something about it. More so I’m called to do about it. And I think, you know, I’ve- I’m convinced that, you know, I’ve had three sisters, never had a brother. In the 45 years of doing hospice palliative care, 98% have been with women. And so, I- I’m convinced that, when I die, if they do an autopsy, they’re going to find a little bit of an ovary inside of me. Nurses have taught me so much that about compassionate care that it’s it’s part of their DNA. It’s- it’s a vocation. It’s not an occupation. So I would say to everybody that, take- look at your role as a vocation. And that’s what makes that really important around that.
[00:26:22] (Kath): I think it’s it’s Fredrick Faulkner, and I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that right, who said “vocation is when your gifts or your deep longing meet the world’s deep needs” and- and that ability to respond to needs and to feel, to lean in.
[00:26:44] (Eugene): You know, when we no longer can change, a situation where challenge to change ourselves. And that’s where that reflective practice is so important that I learned so much from my clients. And I always say that before I go to a waiting room to, to get a client or go into the room. What am I here to learn? And that’s really helpful. And I was telling Kath yesterday that when I’m in an office, I program my computer. I see people on the hour at the half hour, I have this beautiful mindfulness bell ring, and people say, “oh, is our time over?” And I say, “no. I hate to admit this, but I’m getting old. And, after about 30 minutes, my mind starts to wander that, what am I going to have for lunch? And this mindfulness bell just calls me to be present to the most important person in the room. And that’s you and your story.” And it’s amazing. And the next sessions that follow, when that bell rings, the client digs a little deeper. It’s very, very, very rich and powerful.
[00:27:54] (Kath): You have done such a beautiful job of just bringing yourself to learn and just being yourself.
[00:28:02](Eugene): Yeah, and I think that’s what it is that, you know, that, listening to understand was a huge watershed for me because, I wasn’t very effective when I was listening to respond, because that’s not what they needed. When I was- 9- went to 9/11 about two days after the incident happened. My kids were furious that I was going. They were kept on watching the towers fall. And I said, “look, kids, New York City is probably the safest place to be right about now.” So I was there for ten days, and we saw people from eight in the morning till eight at night. All family members, and, any of the first responder that had died, their family would come in, but we each had to spend, midnight shifts, at the site supporting the construction workers and the firefighters that were looking for people that had died. And every team that was there had to have a debriefing. So I was asked to debrief the Ohio State dog team. There was eight of them with their dogs. They had just been to China, for an earthquake. And now they were there. After three days, they realized they were not going to find any more, survivors. So they were going home. So we have this debriefing. And I said, “well, before we start, like, how do you guys cope? How do you deal with this?” And they said, “well, we coped the same way that our dogs do.” I said, “well how’s that?” I said, “well every two hours we put the dog in the van. There’s no windows. It’s climate controlled. So they’re, they’re comfortable. And then we go and dig a hole in the rubble, and we get one of the ironworkers or the firefighters to get in the hole. They’ve got a tarp that looks like rubble. We put it over them and then we put enough, rubble on top that they’re uncomfortable, but they can breathe. And then we set the dogs free, because if the dogs don’t experience success every two hours, they become despondent, they lose focus, and they become depressed.” Well, the first thing was, wow, you spend that kind of attention to your dog. We need to spend that time attention to ourselves. And they said, “you’re right, we do it for the dogs, but we do it for ourselves to teach us that we’re in the business of hope,
[00:30:21] (Eugene): …that we’re going to hope to find another body, another firefighter that’s lost their lives so that we can bring closure to their family.
And that’s the hope, and that’s the hope that keeps us in.
We don’t see the depressing aspect of it.
We see the hope of it.
[00:30:39] (Kath): And again, that can be so rich and powerful. When you talk about them that they do—what for themselves, what they do for their dogs was actually just going through that for the dogs. Did that bring them hope, or did they have a similar ritual for themselves and how did that relate to you?
[00:31:01] (Eugene): It was similar that the fact that they were able to take care of their dogs, because they had a very strong connection to them. So by taking care of them, they were also taking care of themselves, but also seeing that, we knew that there was, you know, 35-3600 people were killed. And we were going to be discovering some pretty horrific things, but it’s how we go about doing it, respecting, the—the person that had died, respecting the surroundings and respecting family.
And that’s when we see that, that’s what gives us hope to keep on going.
[00:31:42] (Kath): So we’re coming to the end of our time together, and I want to pull back then to working in settings where we typically do not think or do not necessarily get the credit for the fact that we are caring for people who are dying. And one of those settings is, so clearly, is long term care. Years ago, someone told me that her sister worked in palliative care and, and, and told me the name of the city where she lived. And I knew there wasn’t a palliative care unit or a hospice unit there.
So I was curious, and eventually I met the sister, and I was so excited because I asked her, where does she work? And she said, “oh, I work in long term care.”
And I was thrilled that she had identified, this was a bunch of years ago on, before we were addressing this. I loved that she had identified “I care for people who are living and dying.” And by acknowledging that, then she can do what she can to help make that person’s life excellent. Help, if she can, you know, depending on what the individual’s wanting, she can help, ask questions that provide dignity, that, address the person’s values and their desires, that it’s person-centred care, and person-centred death. And and I— I think that’s one place where if we acknowledge that that’s the care we give, that we do look after people who are dying,
that in fact— that in fact itself is a way of self-care. Eugene. You’re beautiful. Thank you. I want to acknowledge that you have also authored a few wonderful books. One with Eugene— that’s—sorry— One with Michelle O’Rourke called, was that the one, Befriending Death?
[00:33:47] (Eugene): Yeah. Embracing the End of Life.
[00:33:52] (Kath): So I want to acknowledge that because I think people might just want to hear more of you. And that’s one place they can. The other place they can is through the hospice palliative care, Ontario webinars and education series. So if you go to HPCO.ca, you can see that. And but I also wanted to just finish with a ritual that Michelle O’Rourke introduced me to. And she says, and I’m sure this is based on some highly controlled randomized trial—or not. That when you put your hand on your heart and you release the hormone oxytocin, and oxytocin is the hormone of love and attachment. So, Eugene, thank you for being here with us for sharing beautiful stories, for sharing your beautiful self. And— and so grateful that as you move into your retirement, which— which kind of keeps morphing into other experiences, so grateful that you take the time and have the desire to share those stories, that our work, can be richer, that we can feel, and the calling that we are called to.
[00:35:22] (Eugene): And thank you. This has been an honour and a pleasure.
[00:35:26] (Kath): For those who are listening, we encourage you to follow with any of the palliative talks, a series of palliative podcasts and to check out the other education offerings. And as I said that HPCO.ca. And that you’ll find Eugene Dufour hidden in there too. And Eugene’s book on embracing…
[00:35:51] (Eugene): The End of Life
[00:35:51] (Kath): The End of Life. Thank you, Eugene, so much for being here today.
[00:35:57] (Eugene): Thank you very much.
