Kyle Smith[edit]

I've been a hospice chaplain for fifteen years. My job is to sit with people who are dying.

Not sometimes. Every day.

I hold cold hands. I listen to last words. I witness final breaths. I sit with families in the worst moments of their lives. And somehow, instead of burning out, I found meaning.

What death taught me is that kindness is everything. Not the big gestures—the small ones. The nurse who brings an extra blanket without being asked. The aide who takes time to brush a patient's hair. The doctor who sits down instead of standing.

The families remember these things. Years later, they remember who was kind.

Before hospice, I didn't understand compassion. I thought it was feeling bad for people. It's not. It's presence. It's showing up when showing up is hard. It's the small moment of connection that says, "You matter. You're not alone."

I've cried more in the last fifteen years than I did in the forty before them. And I've never felt more alive.

This wiki is what I've learned about kindness from people at the end of their lives. It's not complicated. It's not about grand gestures. It's about paying attention. Being present. Choosing, in the small moments, to see the person in front of you.

— Kyle Smith, holding space