profits & passions: Kate Colburn

Body language is supposed to be one of those windows to the soul. We cross our legs; we fidget with our hands. The shrewd among us pick up the cues and harvest entire duffel bags of psycho-baggage.

Or not.

Most of us simply disregard the whole silly mess, crossing legs and fidgeting with hands as we may, trying to get through the day without being analyzed for haphazardly tugging an earlobe.

Kate Colburn is in the first camp, at least in one regard - the one that really matters. She can size up your familiarity with mortality based on body language quicker than you can say, Thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.

"When people find out what I do, they either take two steps back or they step in real close to find out more," she says. "You can tell the ones who have not thought a lot about their own mortality; they're the ones stepping back."

Colburn for the past year has been executive director of Hospice and Palliative Care of Westchester. The White Plains-based nonprofit comforts and counsels about 90 patients every day. "Today, there are 93 patients," she says. "Tomorrow, it could be 102. We're budgeted for this year for 90 patients per day and we've been running ahead of that every week."

Hospice has an annual budget of $8.5 million, fed by Medicare, Medicaid, insurance, corporate sponsors and private donations. "But we never turn away for an inability to pay," says Colburn. Some patients are referred; some refer themselves. All have six months or less to live, but there is no termination of care if the patient lives beyond that. Nine percent recover unexpectedly and leave the program.

To prompt donations, Hospice will host its sixth annual golf invitational June 17 at Westchester Hills Golf Club in White Plains. The annual "In Celebrations" will follow at Westchester Country Club in September and then the "Tree of Life" gala at the Hilton Rye Town in December. The three fundraisers took in "a little over $400,000 last year." Both Entergy, which runs the Indian Point complex, and the Hildegarde D. Becher Foundation, a Hartsdale-based supporter of nonprofits, have agreed to return this year as sponsors for the golf event. "We are always looking for sponsors," Colburn says, introducing the point person in those efforts, Holly Benedict, the Hospice public affairs and development director.

"Very spiritual" is how Colburn describes herself. "I believe totally in the fact we have a divine grace within us," she says, noting, "Spiritual care is such a big part of Hospice. Caring for someone's spirit or soul gets to the heart of what the human experience is about."

The lessons of the workplace have not been overlooked:

"I haven't had a deliberate bad day since I started with Hospice" in Iowa m 1986, she says. You never know when your life's going to end, so why not be nice every day?"

Both of Colburn's parents died suddenly. "I never got the chance to say goodbye and to participate in their dying process," she says. "It's an honor to do that with others now" She calls Hospice families "very brave people."

For all the talk of death and the work of death - a 3-inch-thick stack of bills represents just two weeks of expenditures to be paid - there is nothing moribund about Colburn. She possesses, in fact, one of those infectious smiles that brighten the entire room.

Maybe it's the kayak.

Every year, Colburn and about 62 friends form a sort of wilderness community on rivers as far west as Iowa, as far north as Minnesota and as far south as Arkansas. The group has gathered every Memorial Day weekend for the last 39 years; Colburn has been on 15 outings. She kayaks, and in the tradition of Lewis and Clark, she's no weekend oar-dipper. "We do about 12 to 20 miles per day on the river," she says. "We are very renewed and rejuvenated by being in unspoiled nature."

The group eats, paddles, communes and even entertains with a variety show. Last year, Colburn was responsible for a breakfast and complied with granola, yogurt and ham and eggs. She speaks of staring into star-packed skies of black velvet. "You just stare up. It's completely quiet; very peaceful. You never saw so many stars."

Some say the stars are where we came from. Others believe that's where we're going. It's something to think about before taking two steps back.

To support Hospice, log on to www.hospiceofwestchester.com.

Copyright Westfair Communications Mar 3, 2008
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