Pair join forces to write book to help the terminally ill and
their families
Gilroy – At age 22, Pam Umann’s father died of cancer, alone. Years later, her best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer and Umann would drive her back and forth for treatments. Afterwards, she became a social worker specializing in cancer and AIDs patients.
Dr. Jerry Griffin served on the medical brigade during Desert Storm, and more than a decade later working in emergency triage in Iraq, trying to save the wounded and relieve the dying.
Together, the two wrote “The Last Day of Winter: Secrets from the Seasons of Dying,” to help the terminally ill, and families of the dying, know that wherever they are on their journey towards death – they are not alone.
Part of what motivated her to write the book was the death of her father. No one was in the room when he took his last breath. No one was holding his hand.
“It was handled very poorly,” she explained. “My dad shouldn’t have had to die alone. It wasn’t because there was a lack of love in our family, it was because we didn’t know what to do.”
The book she considers a tribute and an apology to him.
“The most difficult thing when you have someone you love (dying) is to put down some of the extraneous anger, so that moment you can just be with them, and not try to make it better,” Umann explained.
But the grief is something universally felt.
The book is a combination of stories collected from real Bay Area, South County and San Benito County residents the two have treated throughout the years from working together at Saint Louise Regional Hospital and Memorial Hospital in Salinas.
The authors stress that death is not just a physical dying, but a spiritual and emotional process.
“We were hoping the book would have a feel of someone walking you through it,” Umann said.
Dr. Griffin had other reasons for writing.
“One of the reasons we possibly wrote the book was to answer our own questions (about death),” he said.
Griffin has doctorates in both medicine and pharmacology. He has served as a hospice director since 1989, and worked in emergency rooms – both makeshift on the battlefield abroad, and in hospitals.
Griffin believes the hardest thing for people to come to terms with when told they are dying is that they will die without doing things they thought they wanted to do in life.
Griffin and Umann explain the various forms people show love to the dying – and it’s not always what you might expect.
“There are limits with what you can do for a dying person,” Griffin said.
Drugs can make someone comfortable, they can’t always cure them.
“Whatever (someone) can do, whether it’s taking someone to the grocery store … that’s fine, and don’t feel guilty,” he explained.
A book signing will be Feb. 23 at 5pm at the lobby Saint Louise Hospital. Books will be available for purchase and given to the first 20 people.
