I started volunteering at my local hospice eight months ago, and the time I have spent has been both meaningful and humbling. I would like to share three of the moments I experienced during my time volunteering there.

The first moment was during the summer, early in my time as a volunteer. This was one of the first times I witnessed a patient being admitted. The doorbell of the hospice rang, and I opened the door. While holding it, the admission team rolled in a patient on a hospital bed. Following the patient was his family, his wife and daughter. His daughter didn’t look much older than me; she was probably in college or just graduated, while her parents seemed quite elderly.

 As I stood nearby, I overheard a conversation between the nurse and the patient’s wife and daughter. The wife mentioned that she was struggling with some other health issues. At first, their situation seemed similar to that of many other patients and families. But as I reflected on it later, one question kept coming to mind: What about the daughter? She was still relatively young and hadn’t even settled into her own life, yet her father was in hospice care, and her mother had other health issues? I couldn’t imagine her life at that moment. I can’t speak much about the family or their history, but this case taught me something important: planning for the future matters. Education, career, marriage, and family all seem distant, but planning all these events in your life becomes essential. 

The second story I will discuss has already been mentioned in a previous blog post, but I would like to discuss it in more detail. I spoke to a woman whose father was admitted into the hospice that day. She repeatedly voiced her concerns about how her father would be cared for by us volunteers and the nurse and caregiver. She mentioned to me frequently that she wanted to be sure that her father was fed well and wouldn’t die of starvation. She was more worried than most other patient’s families I encountered, and I found that was because she was not local to the area and would be flying back home that evening. I did my best to comfort her. This experience stuck out to me because it helped me define what it meant to comfort someone. Whenever she came to talk to me, I wondered:  What do I say that will be comforting? How do I reassure her? And the answer that I found was simply listening to her. I didn’t say much in this conversation. I showed this woman that I was listening to her, and I believe she felt more reassured knowing that someone was hearing her concerns. 

The last story I want to share is my experience helping a patient. The first time I met her, she arrived a few days earlier and asked for scrambled eggs. Since the caregiver was busy,  I prepared the eggs. She initially requested plain eggs, but when I brought them, she asked for salt. Not knowing where the small salt shakers were, another volunteer and I scrambled around looking for them. I went back to the patient’s room and gave her the salt. She then asked for help adjusting her table, so I did that. As I did, the patient smiled at me and said, “Your sweater is really pretty, but it’s white. Make sure you don’t spill anything on that pretty sweater.” Despite her limited mobility, hearing that she noticed my sweater made me smile. The patient began adjusting her bed so she could sit up, but since she wasn’t entirely used to the controls, she told me, “Stay right there, I have no clue how to use this thing. So many buttons! Stay there until I’m settled.” So I did. She took a few minutes to adjust her bed, and I assisted her as necessary. This patient, in particular, made me smile because of her cheerful and talkative nature. Up till then, I hadn’t seen a patient like her. For families, the hospice is often a place of grief or pain, but this experience made me realize that for the patient, the hospice is a place of peace and rest, a place to end life with happy memories. This woman was just being happy, and she made others around her smile, including myself, even in my brief interactions with her. 

My time volunteering has taught me much about my own life and the end of life and how it can be a positive experience. As I continue to volunteer, I will have more meaningful stories and experiences to share.