Retired minister pens book

D.A. WILKINSON

wilkinson@vindy.com

LEETONIA

Gerald Mullen, a retired Wesleyan minister, has a simple belief.

“God loves us all,” he says.

He retired from the ministry when he was 62 and turned to fixing grandfather and wind-up clocks.

Now, at age 75, Mullen said that physically, “It’s not like when you are younger.”

Shortly after saying that, he walked over a snowbank to get to his car. And age has not stopped him from continuing to help people. He now helps those who are dying.

He has written a book titled “O God, Why Am I Crying?” about his experiences as a volunteer helping the terminally ill at Hospice of the Valley.

The subtitle of the book is “Tears on the heart of a Hospice Volunteer.”

His life has been full of pain. He wrote that he was the 11th of 15 children and was born in a log house with no electricity or indoor plumbing. Drinking water came from a ditch about a quarter of a mile from the house.

His father was an alcoholic.

“His drinking [along with his meanness] caused us to live in perpetual fear and poverty,” he wrote.

He joined the military and eventually married his “beautiful sweetheart, Lois.” They have seven children.

Mullen stopped crying after his father died but later found his tears again while working with Hospice.

The volunteers serve one purpose — to help comfort the dying, he said.

“One of my fellow travelers needs my help — as I’ll need his someday,” he wrote.

Part of the book focuses on the history of hospice care, which dates to the ancient Greeks. The modern version that started in the United Kingdom in 1967 was headed by Dr. Cicely Saunders, who later was named a Dame of the British Empire.

Mullen wrote that in talking to a person with a terminal illness, “We are there simply for caring companionship and empathetic, mutual friendship.”

Mullen said he has helped those with terminal illnesses who were as young as 2 years old, teenagers, the middle-aged and the elderly. The help could be anything, such as getting a cup of coffee for a patient.

If the patient wants, Mullen said, he will pray for them, and “sometimes religion isn’t mentioned.”

The title of the book came from a boy Mullen said was going to die. Mullen said that he did not shed tears but felt tears on his heart.

Mullen recalled buying a pair of warm socks for another hospice patient, and how thankful the patient was.

“A simple act of thoughtfulness had helped him to remember that he was a person of worth,” Mullen wrote.

Mary Foster, the executive director of Hospice of the Valley, said it serves Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.

After training, “We match volunteer to the patient and their family.”

Many of the patients do not have many family members.

“It’s not what we do, as much as we show up and listen,” she said. “Dying is not a pretty thing. The patients need as much comfort and support as possible.”