THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506220012
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
There will be a newcomer among this season's nearly three-score regattas in Lower Chesapeake Bay. The fresh face will be the first Hospice Regatta of Greater Hampton Roads. Some 40-50 boats are likely to enter the Hampton Yacht Club-sponsored races, which will raise funds for seven Southeastern Virginia hospices. Co-sponsors of the race are Cox Cable and TV3 WTKR.
Hospice is a special way of caring for the terminally ill and their families. The first U.S. hospices appeared about three decades ago. Their inspiration came from Europe, where the hospice movement had blossomed.
In modern times, millions die in hospitals among strangers while plugged into machines. More and more patients are able to arrange to die at home, surrounded by family and friends.
Hospice makes the choice feasible. It involves patients or their families or both in decisions about how and where the dying will spend the balance of their lives. Hospices provide networks of caregivers.
More than 80 percent of hospice beneficiaries are cancer patients and their families; most of the rest are AIDS and heart-disease patients and their families.
In Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, sailboats are a common, ever-lovely sight. The Hospice Regatta of Greater Hampton Roads, consisting of four spinnaker- and two nonspinnaker-class races, will be the latest in a series of annual regattas that have raised about $2 million from individuals and corporations who receive ringside seats and assorted other race-connected privileges in return for their contributions.
Annapolis was the setting for the first races, in 1982. Skippers wishing to participate in the first Hampton Roads hospice regatta may check the 1995 Cruising Club of Virginia Yearbook for information or telephone Glenn Giles at (804) 380-3821.
The hospices that the Hampton Roads regatta benefits serve the Eastern Shore, the Peninsula, the Middle Peninsula and South Hampton Roads. Living well is desirable. So, too, is dying well. The hospice mission is to assist both. As the founder of the first modern-day hospice in London explained to patients: ``You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can, not only to help you die peacefully, but to live until you die.'' Beautiful, like sailboats. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by Onne Van Der Wal
by CNB