The words, which appeared in bright white letters, seemed appropriate.
The time I spent with Kyle had been a journey, and one that taught me a profound lesson about the sacredness of death.

I’ve told Kyle’s story many times, and I am always moved by the tears it elicits. They prove that the magnificence of this young boy’s life transcends his death - that his legacy lives on through the story of his hospice journey.

Kyle was a sandy-haired boy who lived with his parents Sandra and Michael, twin brother Sean, and sister Kristin in a quiet suburb of Houston. The first time I saw him, he was curled up on the sofa with his cocker spaniel, Bucky. There was a fire in the fireplace and a movie on the VCR. Kyle was weak, but alert and dressed. Although he was bald (and complaining about it, too), he almost looked like any boy out of school on Christmas break. That’s just what he wanted: to be treated like a regular kid.

Kyle had spent the last two years in and out of the hospital for treatment of a tumor. After his final treatment and a poor prognosis, he asked his mother to take him home to live a normal life for awhile. Fortunately for Kyle, his very brave mother really listened to her child, and brought him back to his own bed, own food, his family, and his beloved pet. When Kyle left the hospital on that December day, he became a VITAS patient. And I became his social worker.

With a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous grin, this child captured my heart. I was amazed by his openness and honesty in dealing with his disease. He faced death head on. He was calm and spent most of his time reassuring others that death wasn’t something to be feared. He knew, for instance, that his hamsters were waiting for him up in heaven.

He may have been a child, but he had the wisdom of someone who had lived a long time. He wasn’t afraid to tell me how lonely it felt to be isolated from other children or what he thought death and the afterlife would be like. We laughed and cried together, and always hugged during my visits. As his family carried on with their lives, he seemed satisfied just to be at home in the middle of it all.

As Kyle grew weaker, he urged Sandra to help him plan his funeral. This gave him a sense of control over his destiny. And Kyle assured us that he would be there, too, watching his “grand finale,” and he wanted it to be great!

He wanted to be buried in his Texas A&M jacket and he chose a silver casket with maroon lining because his dad had gone to A&M. He picked out a burial plot under a tree next to a field of grazing cows, and chose a special poem for a friend to read. He asked that the A&M fight song be played as balloons were released by the crowd. Kyle had become friends with officers from the Sugar Land Police Department during his illness - in fact, they’d made him an honorary policeman - and he asked that they serve as honor guards and lead the funeral procession. He wanted a police dog at the cemetery. Finally, he did not want to be transported by a hearse, he said. He wanted to be driven in a regular car, wrapped in the comforter from his bed.

Over that three-month period, the nurse, chaplain and I supported Kyle and his family by living our mission as hospice workers: we enabled this dying child and his loved ones to be home together, enjoying the quality of life - and death - that Kyle so desperately wanted.

We were with them every step of their journey. And we were there for three hours on the day Kyle died. The entire time, he was unconscious in his mother’s arms, actively dying. She rocked him to sleep in the rocker she had held him in when he was a newborn baby. Michael, Kristin and Sean knelt beside the chair, kissing Kyle and saying good-bye. Bucky licked Kyle’s hand as the boy’s favorite song, “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” played softly in the background. After the nurse pronounced him dead, Kyle rode to the funeral home in his mother’s arms - in the family car, wrapped in his comforter.

I learned from Kyle that we are put on this earth to take care of each other. I’m not certain whether Kyle took better care of me, or I of him. But I’m sure of one thing: at the funeral, as the A&M fight song played and we released our balloons, Kyle was watching with his big smile. “Job well done,” he must have thought.

Being a part of Kyle’s journey changed my life. One year after his death we hospice workers who were present when he died gathered once again to remember him. He was just a very special patient who taught us something about our own journeys, too.