ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that it is necessary for Elissa Foster to speak to the different 'layers' of hospice because, as they learned, the determination of whether someone is dying is as much a symbolic construction of the organization as it is an empirically determined state. When it is necessary to distinguish one of these connotations of hospice from the other two, Elissa will identify the particular usage she intend by applying one of the following terms: hospice-as-philosophy, hospice-as-organization, or hospice-as-experienced. The chapter discusses that at several points throughout this research, the other volunteers and she encountered dying as it related to the intersection of hospice services and their relationships with their patients. It also demonstrates how the concept of dying tended to revolve around two very practical concerns dying as an impending physical reality that affected interpersonal communication and relationships, and dying as a categorical indication of the hospice patient's eligibility for hospice services.
