It's an overarching principle of life that we are born to die. If we can align ourselves with such, our perspective shifts. If we live with appreciative consciousness of our mortality, acting accordingly to our true selves, our motivations and decisions change. We go from living in fear to living in courage.
It is not an easy step to align with death. It means no longer denying what deeply fulfills us because time is short. It means correcting the decisions we made in fear or through conditioning to now make choices of a higher calling. It means working with the struggles of aging which arise. It means sustaining ourselves spiritually in order to cope. Aligning with death is often a bittersweet and brutal process.
The irony, though, is that aligning with death is that which allows us the fullest life possible. This is because we have shed the contrived, fear-based inhibitions of ego in favor of the liberated, spiritual self. Aligning with death, becoming cognizant and even appreciative of what dying might mean (for all of life is dying), allows one to understand and respect one’s place with all in the universe. Aligning with death allows one to know that he or she is part of a bigger, unfolding spiritual process.
Choosing hospice wholeheartedly at the end is a facet of aligning oneself with death. It is a brave and open choice to accept one's terminal decline and focus on a quality of time left rather than any possible prolongation at all cost. The hospice philosophy, in its richest form, aims to give its practitioners terminal solace, a peace which denying death cannot give. Choosing hospice with an open mind when one is ready is one of the ways to align oneself with death, to prepare oneself in mind, body and spirit for what is to come. There is no perfect timing at choosing hospice, but the more accepting one is of what is occurring and what is expected to come, the readier one is.