I retired and became a bereavement guide — here's what I've learned

Lay chaplain Neal Dunnigan says all deaths are traumatic and all deaths are connected

American secular chaplain Neal Dunnigan, at his home in Cork. Picture Dan Linehan

What the dying most regret is how they conducted their relationships, lay chaplain Neal Dunnigan says. 

“They can feel they didn’t spend enough time, or quality time, with people to get to know them properly or help someone close to them.”

Dunnigan, an American lay Franciscan, had a long career as a technology manager and consultant. Living in Oklahoma with his wife, he wanted to do something more meaningful in retirement.

“From talking to people in various prisons and hospitals, I felt I should train to be a chaplain,” Dunnigan says.

“I had been a lay Franciscan for several years by then.

His wife, Virginia, joined him in chaplaincy training, although she no longer practises; she works as an artist. After a visit to Ireland — where they met a Mercy Order associate in charge of training chaplains — Dunnigan and his wife were encouraged to continue their training here, with their credits interchangeable.

After their first year of training in Ireland, in 2018, the couple decided to stay here. (Neal Dunnigan’s grandmother, from Glennamaddy, emigrated to the US at 14, allowing him to obtain an Irish passport; Virginia has been granted citizenship.)

Having graduated as a chaplain and trained at Cork University Hospital, Dunnigan felt there were few opportunities in the traditional hospital environment for his role.

As a result, he established Cork Community Chaplaincy Services. It operates on a non-denominational, inter-faith, inclusive community chaplaincy model that doesn’t seek out converts and is adaptable to both secular and faith-based organisations and volunteers.

In providing caregivers with chaplaincy training, Dunnigan worked with volunteer organisations that feed the homeless. He helped guide volunteers to work through the difficult scenarios they encountered. But the pandemic put a lot of that work on hold.

After the pandemic, Dunnigan attended the first European bereavement conference in Copenhagen. “Ireland was well-represented by the Irish Hospice Foundation. I was the only faith-based practitioner at the conference. I thought that was strange, because when it comes to bereavement, it’s usually the people from your faith community (that come to your aid.).”

When he returned to Cork, Dunnigan set up bereavement-accompaniment training, to teach people how to accompany their friends, families, and co-workers who are bereaved. They’re not ‘accompanying’ them as therapists. They’re doing it informally, helping by their presence.

Dunnigan says the emphasis is on spirituality rather than religiosity. “I deal with people irrespective of their faith tradition. They might be agnostic or atheist. They still have spirituality, a connectedness. They can talk in humanistic terms or they may express themselves in traditional Christian terms.”

In the US, there are so many religious traditions that there is no one way to grieve. Growing up in an Irish and Italian immigrant community — his mother was of Italian descent — Dunnigan attended Irish-style funerals as well as Italian ones.

“Now, even if the deceased had a faith tradition, there’s no assurance that the bereaved share that. And bereavement is for the survivors. Ireland is changing rapidly as well. Most of the things we associate with the Irish bereavement tradition come from a rural society. In cities like Cork and Dublin, things are now very different. It’s more bespoke.”

However, Dunnigan says we should hold onto the ‘month’s mind’.

“It’s an opportunity to catch up after you’ve caught your breath following a death, when you’re ready to mourn. It’s a beautiful custom. The tradition of the wake is changing. There are fewer wakes in the home. It’s becoming more like what it is in the US, with just a viewing of the deceased within restricted hours in a funeral home.”

Cremations, which used to be verboten in the Catholic Church, are now common. Celebrating the life of the deceased often involves religion in this country.

“But bereaved family members or extended family may have had bad experiences with churches and they may be threatened by overly-religious talk. So you have to strike a balance.”

Dunnigan considers himself privileged to be with the dying. “There are two principles that I teach in my courses: All deaths are traumatic and all deaths are connected. When I say death is traumatic, it’s because the body never really wants to give up the spirit.

“Neither do we, as survivors, want the spirit to leave the body of someone we love.”

When he says connected, Dunnigan means that each death reminds us of all the prior deaths we’ve experienced. And it’s a foretelling of all future deaths of our loved ones and eventually of ourselves.

“We are all connected at a time of mourning.”

A child’s death or a suicide is particularly hard to accommodate. “The bereavement is for life and it’s often serious for the survivors.” Dunnigan welcomes the peer support that the Irish Hospice Foundation offers the bereaved after such tragedies. He, too, can help the 20% of people in need of additional support following a tragedy.

Euthanasia is, Dunnigan predicts, going to be the subject of a nationwide discussion over the next two or three years. “I would welcome an informed discussion, not a kneejerk or fear-based reaction. It should be based on the best available knowledge.

“I think euthanasia has a place in the overall scheme, but I don’t think it’s needed or desirable except for very few cases. If we look at the experiences in other countries, we see that it’s not something the majority of dying people would choose. For those who choose it, proper controls should be in place, so it can be managed.”

What is Dunnigan’s advice regarding our inevitable deaths?

“We should all keep our affairs in order from a young age. You’re never too young to have a will.

“And, also, you should have a living will, which makes advance decisions in terms of resuscitation, for example.”

From dealing with people in their final stage of life, Dunnigan says: “The final moments are not to be feared.” His “favourite” death story arose out of “a famous Jewish philosopher”, Philip Hallie, dispensing largesse in his hospital room to Dunnigan long before he worked in the area of death.

Dunnigan was curious about this philosopher.

“Philip Hallie’s speciality was studying people’s inherent kindness. I heard he was in hospital and I went to visit him. I didn’t realise it was his last day. He greeted me like I was a long-lost friend. He presented me with hospitality with his wife there. I wondered what he would want talking to me during his last available hours. Afterwards, I realised what he had done and that was a precious gift to me. One beautiful thing we could do is to teach someone else how to die like they were Phil Hallie.”

Then there are the stoics, who taught us that we should face the inevitable with courage, resignation, and an absence of fuss.

As doctor and author, Seamus O’Mahony writes in the epilogue of his elucidating book, The Way We Die Now: “Doctors can, indeed, help the dying, but dying needs to be de-medicalised.”

Like taxes, there’s no getting away from it.