Khamsene Phanthvong, a Buddhist monk from Laos, came to the Midwest and established a temple in Rockford, Illinois, in 1982. The temple served the Laotian community in the area and helped maintain and preserve Laotian culture. He went on to establish other temples, including one in Racine County on Highway V and Ryan Road. For the Laotian community, this gentle, kind man served as a leader and provided a tie for the immigrants with their faith and heritage.

In his late fifties, Khamsene suffered kidney failure and a stroke that had left him unable to speak. He was cared for by his fellow monks and others while living in the temple. Then he enrolled in Community Care’s Racine Partnership Program in August 2006. The Community Care team in Racine made it possible for him to return to his home in the temple through the managed long-term care it provides.

Community Care social worker Diane Picciurro got to know Khamsene and appreciated his quiet, gentle ways. “He was a man of few words. He would come into the Adult Day Center and just take it all in. He would say, ‘I love you.’” Because of the amount of medical care he needed near the end of his life, Khamsene found himself back in a nursing home. “It was important to him and his community for him to return to the temple, to die in the temple,” says Diane.

His Community Care team had gotten to know Khamsene well. They knew he felt it was inappropriate to wear the blue or white hospital gowns the nursing home provided, instead of his orange robe. “We learned to pay attention to the little things,” says Diane. “Little details mattered to him, and that was what was important. We knew it was important to be open-minded and the people at his temple understood that we were opened to being educated on what they were about.”

Lynn Jensen, NP, met Khamsene about a month before he died. “His fellow monks wanted to take him home.” When they did, Lynn continued to care for Khamsene, visiting him at the temple. Lynn and Diane both came to understand that Khamsene was a very highly respected man, akin to the pope or a high-ranked bishop. Three days before he died, his fellow monks began a 24-hour bedside vigil. When he died, streams of visitors came from all over the world. “It was quite wonderful, a real outpouring,” says Lynn.

Diane, Lynn and the rest of the Racine team that cared for Khamsene feel glad they were able to make it possible for him to die in the temple, as he wished. They’re openness to his cultural and religious needs and their willingness to find a way to make it work made it possible.

“It was such a wonderful thing we did,” says Julie Doll, who had been the Racine Site Manager at the time. Julie is now the Clinic Services Specialist.