Billy Goodman, 67, of North Providence, says, “I kind of know where I’m headed, you know? And that makes it a lot easier, because I’m not afraid to die.” Providence Journal photo/ Kathy Borchers

As his dying day approaches, Billy Goodman finds comfort with his family, his faith and a former Buddhist nun whose capacity for listening and reflecting has helped thousands of terminally ill people leave this world.

When the moment comes, as doctors say it will sooner rather than later, Billy Goodman believes that relatives who have already passed on will be there to greet him.

“True, true happiness” is what he expects to find.

“I believe there will be nothing but friends there. Loving people. I actually see a place where you don’t even talk –– people know what you’re already thinking.”

Billy, 67, has colon cancer. Unwilling to experience the side effects, he has declined chemotherapy. And while a prognosis in such cases is by nature only an educated guess, doctors last fall said he probably had six months to live. Billy put his trust in his wife, Judy, his Lord, and Home & Hospice Care of Rhode Island, which offers a variety of services –– none, perhaps, more important than spiritual counsel.

On this afternoon, spiritual care coordinator Pamela Colleran is visiting Billy at his North Providence home. Colleran holds Buddhist beliefs, but as an interfaith chaplain, she is qualified to counsel anyone. She is a serene woman, at peace with herself and humbled by her job. Her words and manner are soothing, even to the non-dying.

Billy, who enjoyed a career as a radio and TV personality in Rhode Island and Las Vegas, was raised a Catholic but simply calls himself a Christian now.

“This is probably going to sound crazy to you,” he says, “but my life is probably more structured right now than it’s been in a long, long time. I kind of know where I’m headed, you know? And that makes it a lot easier, because I’m not afraid to die.

“I’ve already made that decision with God –– when I made the decision not to do the chemotherapy. I said, ‘I’m going to put my life in your hands, good Lord.’ And I did.”

Colleran listens respectfully, as she has before with Billy and untold times with others over the decade she has been learning and practicing spiritual care, which has a powerful emotional component. Fifty-two years old, she is one of nine spiritual care coordinators at Home & Hospice, Rhode Island’s largest hospice firm, with 280 total employees.

Billy finishes his story.

“Sounds like you’ve thought this out a lot,” Colleran says, “and somehow it’s made sense to you, the faith part. A lot of people come to it just because they’re either brought up in it or they believe it for certain other reasons. But it seems like you’ve put a lot of thought into what you believe. There might have been a time when you didn’t quite believe.”

“Oh, there was,” Billy says.

“I was wondering what exactly was that moment when you decided that you were going to put your faith and trust in God.”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“No particular time?”

“I do remember rehabilitating in a 12-step program,” says Billy, whose drinking days are over. “One of the steps, the third step, is turning your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand him. I signed on the dotted line. I said, ‘You can take it all. You can have my life. I’ve got nothing going for me.’ And I didn’t.”

Influenced by an aunt who practiced Christian Science, Pamela Colleran became interested in theology as a child in New Jersey.

“I started thinking about life and death and God and truth and all those issues,” she says. She attended services at Protestant and Catholic churches, “anywhere I could go to try to understand what was going on.”

Her quest brought more questions.

“At nine,” she says, “I kind of figured out that there was some kind of –– I don’t want to say hypocrisy –– but there were some contradictions in what I thought God was and what was happening in the world. All those questions to me were paramount. It just kind of set me on a path to search.”

Colleran immersed herself in religion and philosophy at Northeastern University and by her mid 30s, she had embraced Tibetan Buddhism, which she first discovered as a teenager. She worked for a while in the computer field, then studied with a Buddhist master, eventually earning a master’s degree in Tibetan Buddhist studies, and became a Buddhist nun for seven years. Six years ago, after further study in interfaith chaplaincy, she went to work for Home & Hospice Care of Rhode Island.

Death, which first frightened her at 7 when a child her age died, has lost its power to scare Colleran.

“I’m not afraid,” she says. “I’ve built my own faith and I’m strong enough in it that I’m quite comfortable and that’s basically why I think I can do this. I couldn’t do this if I was petrified. Or unsure.”

She does not, of course, proselytize. She listens, and talks, and, when asked, answers questions.

“It’s very profound, a very sacred time that we get to see these patients. They consistently, every single one of the people that I’ve ever met, have really touched me, have shared with me –– I don’t want to start crying –– I mean, they share the deepest things with me that you can imagine. With a total stranger. They allow me to come in and talk to them. And they share what’s going on in their hearts. They share their lives with me. And in that process, after I leave, they think about what I’ve said.

“What I try to do is lift them up, lift their lives up, and lift whatever love and goodness and the things that they’ve done: the experiences, the strengths they have. And I try to hold those things up for them so that they can die with some sense of, I don’t know, pride or contentment. So that they’re not afraid.”

As their terminal disease nears its inevitable conclusion, Colleran says, most patients accept what is happening. A great majority –– 80 to 90 percent, Colleran estimates –– experience dreams or visions of people already gone waiting to welcome them.

“I think at this point in a person’s life, toward the end of life, they really know what’s going on in their body and they’re forming a relationship with whatever it is that they have going with the next –– I don’t want to say the next life, but whatever is in store for them. It could be God, God’s love, they’re allowing into their hearts. It could be a sense of peace.

“I really don’t know what it is, but I see this transformation over and over again.”

Billy Goodman was diagnosed with colon cancer in March 2007.

“They thought it was something they could control,” he says. “But after the operation, I was told it had spread. The fourth stage.”

Among other services, Home & Hospice provides pain relief, which Billy appreciates.

“Hopefully,” says Colleran, “this is going to be a comfortable, safe ––”

“Ride,” Billy says.

“Yup, a safe ride.”

“If I get out of here pain-free, I’ve made it, as far as I’m concerned.”

“That matters to a lot of people,” Colleran says. “Just trying to be comfortable. You don’t need that when you’re trying to think of other things.”

“No way, man.”

Imitating a puppeteer, Billy gestures toward the ceiling.

“Sometimes, people say, ‘How are you doing today, Billy?’ I say, ‘Look. Just look up. See those two strings? Those two strings you see up there are connecting me to heaven.’ And He’s running me. He’s just running me down here for a while until he finally takes me up with him. Some night, I’ll go.”

Visit Home & Hospice Care of Rhode Island at http://www.hhcri.net/

gwmiller@projo.com