Thresholding

What is it like to die in prison?

Until I watched the documentary prison terminal I had not given much thought to what the end of life is like for a prisoner serving a life time sentence. The Prison Terminal film was nominated for a 2014 Academy Award in the category of Documentary Short Subject.

Filmmaker Edgar Barens transports us to the inside the Iowa state maximum security prison recording how the terminally prisoner Jack hall lives his final 6 months (even his last breath). As the film evolves we meet 82 year old Jack Hall who was once a decorated World War II veteran who fought in battle and was a prisoner of war. He spent 21 years in prison of which the last 12 where in the infirmary wing. Jack Hall’s youngest son had problems with drug use and committed su***de. Hall was serving a life sentence after being convicted for killing his late son’s drug dealer. When we meet him he is a debilitated man who has struggled with PTSD, to***co and alcohol problems and who is struggling with COPD. He is aware of the short time he has to live and is resigned to die in prison:
“I’m going to get out of here one of these days… in a box” Jack Hall.

Jack Hall has the fortune of being in one of the few prisons with hospice services. They have two hospice rooms that look similar to a standard inpatient hospice unit room. The rooms have been fully decorated with donations and furniture built by prisoners. Hall has an interdisciplinary team with a nurse, doctor, social worker, chaplain who meet and develop care plans like any outside prison hospice patient would. Prison hospice is different in that security is an integral part of part of his team.

Hi Friends,
“Get Low” is the next in our film series at the Orpheum Theatre. There will be only one showing Monday May 5th at 7:30pm sharp with a discussion to follow. This is a dark “True Tall Tale” about a man who plans and attends his own funeral party with lots of plot twists. Fabulous performances by Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray. Thought provoking, funny, touching and, yes, elevating….

We will discuss the movie afterwards for those interested in the lobby. Cost is $7.

All blessings,
Thresholding


All blessings,
Thresholding
Jennifer Hamilton and Liza McClure

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This Monday evening, April 7, at the Orpheum Theatre, downtown Fairfield at 7:30pm Thresholding is sponsoring the viewing of Griefwalker, a recently produced documentary. $7 at the door.



Griefwalker

This documentary introduces us to Stephen Jenkinson, the leader of a palliative care counselling team at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. Through his daytime job, he has been at the deathbed of well over 1,000 people. What he sees over and over, he says, is “a wretched anxiety and an existential terror” even when there is no pain. Indicting the practice of palliative care itself, he has made it his life’s mission to change the way we die – to turn the act of dying from denial and resistance into an essential part of life.

The Good Death: Making the Final Transition a Positive Experience The Good Death Make the Final Transition A Positive Experience for All by Brian MacQueen Liza McClure and Jennifer Hamilton of Thresholding in Fair...