What follows is a glimpse into the world of a hospice
volunteer. In the four short years, I
have been a hospice volunteer my view of the world has opened up in ways that I did not anticipate.
I
do not know what the typical hospice volunteer is like. If my
orientation class was any indication I am not a
typical hospice volunteer. The first day or orientation I drove my
motorcycle to the meeting, walked in and felt almost immediately out of
place. The room was a mixture of students, who were working towards
degree's in social work, and retired people. All of them were
immediately likeable. They are the people I expected hospice volunteers
to be, engaging, calm, patient and empathetic.
We
went around the room and everyone spent a couple of minutes describing
what brought them to hospice. I only listened to the first couple to
know that my reason for being here lacked some of the depth that I was
hearing from (others) people in the room. I was here because I came to
pay a debt for the care my own father received while he was under
hospice care. I know that the most heartfelt thank you's pale in
caparison with actually giving your time back to a person or an
organization that provided meaning in your life. I owed hospice an
amount of time that I needed to determine.
I
am a retired firefighter. I have seen sudden and unexpected death.
There is no way to give the appropriate weight to traumatic injuries or
illness that surrounds a death. Seeing this has not
given me any additional depth or insight on life. Except that I have
developed a habit of looking at ordinary things with an expectation that
there is an extraordinary thing buried in there somewhere. These
people who died in my Fire Service career were for fleeting moments my
brother, sister, mom, or dad. It is always sad but you learn quickly to
shield yourself from grief and grieving people. It is a survival
tactic that is needed, there is just too much to process. Grief and
grieving was left to the professionals or loved ones who had the
training or relationship to provide the real long term support that is
needed when a person dies.
Those
first couple of hospice training meetings I considered leaving at break
more than once. I was stepping into the world I actively avoided for a
lot of years.
My
father was in the care of hospice during
the final weeks of his life. You can tell when a person cares about
what they do for a living and hospice people cared. The RN's, LPN's,
and CNA's were completely genuine in wanting to make my dad and family
as prepared as we could be. That care was familiar from my Fire
Service days.
On the last night of his life, I was
unknowingly rescued by one of those Hospice RN’s.
I
would sit in the room with my dad and read
while he slept. As was my practice when
I was staying the night, I would walk down to the liquor store and get a
couple
of beers early in the evening. A couple of beers and a good book were
how I spent those nights with dad. On the night he died, I met one
of the off-duty hospice nurses who was in the liquor store and struck up
a
conversation with her. In the 45
minutes (walk and talk time) that I was gone my dad died. My mom and
sister, in tears, told me that if I
would have been home I could have performed CPR on my dad to revive
him. I would not have performed CPR on dad and I would have had to
have a really difficult conversation with my mom that may have shaped
how we viewed each other for years to come. That beer walk and RN talk
saved me. My role was the son providing comfort, I am still grateful
for that.
I
don't want to elevate the hospice volunteer above the people who do the
real work for these patients and families. RN's, LPN's, CNA's, Social
Workers, and Clergy do all of the heavy lifting. For the most part I
get to see people when they are having the best part of their day.
I
came to pay a debt and ended up staying on because I found so much
amazing life in a place that was so close to death. This journey has
allowed me to meet people that I would have never met normally. Instead
of meeting dying people and their grieving families, I have met
painters, poets, hot rod builders, writers, clerics, and people who
lived the history I read about in my favorite books. I expected to find
grief in everyone and with the spouses, children, friends, and family I
found an overwhelming amount of love. I am not by any stretch of
imagination a Hallmark kind of sensitive guy. But there is a universal
touch that everyone has seen and felt. The gentle touch of a mother
brushing back a kids hair from a hot forehead and touching the back of
her hand to his head. The three finger touch of a spouse or lover on
the cheek or chin of a loved one while they slept. The two handed arm
rub of a long time friend. You see this a lot in hospice and none of it
looks like grief. It looks and feels like love.
It
is still humbling to think about how much all of these people have
given to me at a time when they were facing their own death. I hope
what follows is the long overdue thank you I have for all my hospice
patients who continued my education.
For purposes of anonymity all of the patients I reference
will be called John or Jane.
One of my
favorite patients, who suffered from advanced stages of Dementia, has called me
John from the minute I sat down with her. I have happily adopted the name
since. I have been seeing Jane for over
4 months now and I don’t know who John is to her. I only know that John is cared for deeply by
her and he brings her the briefest moment of contentment during our
visits. The locations that all these true stores take place are right in your own city, state, and nursing facility.
If your family has lost a loved one while in hospice care, it
is my hope you recognize the genuine love and respect that total strangers have
had for your loved ones. More
importantly I hope you realize that your loved ones gave an incredible gift of
love, hope, and life to those hospice volunteers who were lucky enough to know
them. Thank you for sharing your loved
ones.
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