| On your Mark |

Meet… Tamar Stein

By Shoshana Gross | December 31, 2024

Chaplain and grief counselor Tamar Stein brings hope and compassion to patients and families, easing the fear of final transitions

Switching Lanes

Life was paint colors, backsplashes, and kitchen tiles. My kids were young, my interior design job was part time, and my schedule was flexible. After a short certification program, I worked for eight years — first for a company, and then as a freelancer. But while I loved the creative aspect of designing rooms for my clients, the constant deadlines and stress were sapping away any enjoyment I’d once found in my career.

The one aspect of interior design I still enjoyed was spending time with my clients, many of whom became personal friends. After helping them pick kitchen tiles, we schmoozed and connected “off the clock.” But it wasn’t enough to make me feel fulfilled. My daily routine had become a daily grind.

“What should I do?” I asked my husband. Going back to school to learn a new career was overwhelming — and I had no idea what I wanted. My post-seminary the-world-is-my-oyster attitude had been submerged in the tidal wave of everyday life. I was stuck.

While working and worrying about my future, I also had a close family member who was very sick. Toward the end of her life, she was in hospice care, and I spent as much time with her as possible until she passed away. Aside from grandparents, it was my first experience losing someone close, and I needed time to process my raw grief. My world was shaken, and I was left with a strong desire to do something in her honor.

At the time, a client who was a grief counselor told me about her work in hospice care, where she visited and spoke to patients. Her words resonated deeply, and I knew this was something I wanted to do.

Change to Chaplain

“You want to do what?” was my husband’s initial reaction. When he realized how much it meant to me to do volunteer work at a hospice, he agreed and became my biggest supporter.

I soon discovered that volunteering for hospice care was not simply a matter of showing up. There was a training process requiring significant amounts of time. And I was nervous. Would it be scary to deal with people who were dying? Could I do it? Taking the plunge, I spent two days a week at my hospice volunteer program and dedicated the rest of the week to interior design.

After one of my classes, I stopped off at the hospice kosher kitchen to eat a hasty lunch. An older woman bustled in, sporting a badge that said, “Spiritual Counselor.”

“What’s a spiritual counselor?”

“A chaplain,” she answered.

“I thought that was only priests!” I blurted out.

She explained that chaplains could be of any religion, and their job was to provide emotional support to terminally ill patients seeking the comfort of faith as they came to terms with death. A nondenominational program called Clinical Chaplaincy allowed graduates to attain the “Spiritual Counselor” badge.

That’s when I knew — I was going to become a chaplain. I would honor my relative by bringing consolation and hope to men and women struggling on their final journey.

Just Sitting

The most profound moments of a person’s life are birth and death. Birth is more comfortable for us to participate in and think about, but the dying also need strength and compassion. As I learned how to assist hospice patients during my three-year Clinical Chaplaincy program, I asked a lot of sh’eilos and followed my rav’s advice in navigating courses on psychology, spirituality, and grief.

A chaplain is available to everyone, so no specific beliefs were taught. But while a regular therapist isn’t supposed to mention G-d, spirituality is a major component of caring for the dying. We learned how to discuss existential questions with patients on the threshold of death, but mainly, we were taught to provide emotional support to people in pain. While some people in hospice care struggle with existential questions, everyone is seeking comfort and love.

Sitting and comforting patients spanning the colorful spectrum of humanity is a wonderful opportunity to make a kiddush Hashem. We sometimes have this delusion, for example, when we’re at a shivah house, that there are magical words that will take away pain. There are none. As a chaplain, I learned to sit with people in their deepest pain — unable to take it away, unable to fix it — just sitting. During those supremely vulnerable moments, the gift of connection is both humbling and inspiring.

“Thank you for allowing me to be here,” I tell the patients. And I mean it.

Meaning

Being a chaplain is living a unique and variable mussar sefer, filled with alternating grief and joy and purpose.

Day after day, I see how eternity is the great equalizer. Money, popularity, and fame don’t matter here. Every life is precious and has meaning, but it’s the love of family and friends and the strength of belief that bring real happiness.

An older woman with dementia had a sister who called every day. The woman didn’t remember her sister’s name, but the daily calls continued. They couldn’t hold a coherent conversation, but the healthy sister sang their mother’s lullabies over the phone, and the sick sibling would sing with her. When everything else was gone, that woman still had love.

Another patient couldn’t talk anymore and needed someone with the power of attorney to sign her paperwork. When I called her house, the lady who answered replied: “I’m the housekeeper. I have the power of attorney. Her kids haven’t spoken to her in years.” It was one of the saddest things I’d ever heard.

But even those who die alone lived for a reason. They also had a crucial role to play in This World. I once sat alongside a dying man who had no family or friends, and I recited Tehillim for his neshamah, knowing his life had a purpose. It was a comfort for me, and I hope it was a comfort for him, too.

Since becoming a chaplain, I’ve tried to invest more time and thought into my own relationships, to live my own life with more appreciation for the time I have.

In my line of work, it’s easy to see Hashem’s gifts.

Embracing Pain

After my three-year chaplaincy program, I took a yearlong grief counseling course from the American Institute of Healthcare Professionals, where I learned the skills to open a private grief counseling practice, and how to run groups for grieving frum women (which I manage together with a client from my interior design days).

Our group is for women who’ve experienced recent loss, and it’s a place to leave the grief-phobic world that wants them to look fine and get on with their lives. Here, women can articulate what they’re going through and receive validation. Grief is about transitions, the loss of the expected. I see women who’ve lost children, spouses, parents, or siblings, and women with sick relatives — even those experiencing tremendous life changes like retirement and divorce.

As a chaplain and grief counselor, I know that people need to grieve for what was before accepting what is. That it’s okay to not be okay. That we don’t have to fear pain, because only when we embrace that pain can we begin to feel joy again.

Here to Stay

I love what I do.

When I’m with a dying patient, I can sometimes feel the neshamah in the room, and I know, without any doubt, that inside, we are eternal and limitless.

I know a volunteer who sat, day after day, reading to a patient who had no family. He wasn’t conscious and never spoke. She wondered, “Does this man know I’m here?” One day, she finally said she was leaving.

“Please don’t go,” he whispered.

She stayed.

It’s the honor and privilege we have — until the final journey, we’re here to stay.

Tamar Stein can be contacted through Family First.