Yesterday, I attended the ground-breaking ceremony for Spokane's second Hospice House. See story.

The house will be completed a year from now and will allow 12 patients at a time to die in beautiful surroundings.

Barb Cox, Hospice of Spokane's first clinical director, read a wonderful poem credited to Native American Chief Tecumseh.

Here's an excerpt:

"When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

(S-R photo by Jesse Tinsley, showing Willa Johns, a former Hospice of Spokane executive director and now a hospice patient, shoveling some ceremonial dirt. Barb Cox is pictured to her left)

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