A Captivating Introduction

​Once a month, the staff of Rockbridge Area Hospice gather with Chaplain Mark Schroeder to remember those whom we've lost under our care. Our patients become our family, they are someone's loved one, their father, mother, grandparent, sibling, neighbor or friend.

​Below you can find the moving introduction that our Chaplain delivered at our most recent bereavement ceremony:

"We meet people who are not stats, not a percentage of a population according to age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, color, political or religious persuasion. Stats do not have names.  We have never met a statistic, a stat does not cry, nor sing, nor pray nor laugh, live nor die.  The people we have met have names and as each name is unique so is each person prayed with, bathed, administered medicines, and had conversations and thankful for the administrative staff who help every step of the way.  We come as a team to each person who is coming to the end of days.  Each hospice team comes to heal and give comfort to the body, but also the heart, soul and mind of each person in our care.  This healing is quantifiable but is fully enhancing the quality of life to the end. Face time is more important than Facebook time. People we had not known allowed us into their homes, rooms and even their hearts, as their guests to serve and minister to them in their last days on earth. We also remember their final days as they served us in the stories of their lives, their families, their faith, their hopes, their joys, their sorrows, their dreams, their fears, their love."  - Mark Schroeder, Chaplain

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