Connection

After these first few months volunteering in the hospital, and now in the hospice, I am starting to come away with impressions. Things that stay with me, things I find myself thinking about offsite, things I am trying to learn how to digest.

The most important one is connection.

When you’re vulnerable like this, in the hospital or dying, things get pared down to the absolute essentials. Bodily functions, simple things. I got a good night’s sleep. A dish of ice cream.

The people whose suffering haunts me the most are those who don’t have anyone there for them. They are alone, navigating a system full of strangers, at a time in their lives when they are at their most vulnerable. Their suffering is amplified because of this.

The elderly lady in the hospital following some sort of emergency, anxious why her son had not yet come. She was panicked, frightened, alone. She needed her slippers! It was four o’clock. At home she would have a cup of tea, with a little sugar! I took his phone number and double-checked with the nursing station that he had been called. I got her a cup of tea with a little sugar.

The guy whose leg was being ravaged by flesh-eating bacteria, in the hospital for weeks, no friends or family coming to visit him because they’re part of a world he has left behind. I’ve been clean for a year, he tells me. I listen as he tells me how he thinks the nurses are singling him out for punishment because he complained about not having Internet access. I wonder how much is real and how much is the paranoia born of a damaged mind. I do know that it would be so easy for a family member or friend to bring him a kindle or, more importantly, some company to help ease the mind-numbing boredom and ever-present pain. I am a poor substitute for someone who knows him well. He thanks me for my patience and asks me to marry him.

The hospice is easier than the hospital; here patients have access to the internet, televisions in private rooms, they have brought blankets, slippers, things from home. But even so, the thing that matters most to every single one of these people is connection. The highlight of their day is always, without exception, who has come to visit them that day. And that’s why being a volunteer is so great. You can be that person, and even if it’s not the same as a friend or family member, it’s way better than nothing. You can make a connection, hear their stories, make sure they know their life matters.

Let’s all do this for each other now, every single day. Connect with people. Be there when they need you. Make sure you tell them that they matter.

3 thoughts on “Connection

  1. This is a heartbreaking and beautiful description of your experience there. “It’s way better than nothing” is sometimes just exactly enough. I think that man’s proposal of marriage, even knowing it’ll be declined — by his already married friend — reveals a joyful optimism that you brought to his day. Thanks for putting this into words and sharing it.

  2. The vivid intensity of end of life brings into focus that which is most real, and most present — often that which gets so easily obscured in the bustle of everyday lives. These human connection moments at times of special intensity — the births, the deaths, the news-that-will-change-the-course-of-a-life — are what my discipline of nursing thrives upon. People who give of themselves voluntarily in communion with those who need hospice support are enriching the world by bringing the essence of themselves to those who cannot reciprocate in usual ways and will not be here to tell the story. It is a genuine and authentic and powerful gift to the universe. And knowing that people such as you are giving freely and fully in this kind of work reminds us of how much goodness there is in the human spirit.

  3. Hi Mary,
    Second try, I lost the first beginning, which only said that i have Lyme’s disease on top of the Parkinson’s and can hardly walk. Our oldest son gets out of the hospital in Annmasse (my brain is also affected – I can’t spell anything) today after more than a month, Ken has a much metastasized cancer and toward the end of May his large intestine. as he described, exploded. The doctors took away a lot of it and he has been a long time recovering. He had Hodgekin’s disease at 17 and has been sick on and off, often critically, since then. He is fighting still to live and be well. He feels a kinship with Job.
    I guess I feel an incentive to stay alive to keep him from ever having to go to a hospice. So many nurses are impatient and sometimes cruel – my question to you is whether the hospice people are better with the patients.
    love, susan – Keep Running !

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