Throughout my volunteer experience, the relationship that I have created with my patient, who I will call Richard, has given me a new perspective on what it means to have a life and live one. Throughout this year, our relationship has grown. I’ve seen his guard come down, met his family members, laughed with him, been fearful with him, and grown up a whole lot. Like Dr. Puri says about the impermanence of death, this is difficult work. Building a relationship with death doesn’t happen overnight. It is something you plan for, something you grow into.
The first time I visited Richard, I was nervous. I didn’t know how to find his room. I didn’t know how the visit was going to go or who I was going to meet. Through the first few visits, those nerves persisted. But, as the fall progressed, I started learning more about Richard. I told him more about my life, and he was happy to listen. I slowly started learning more from him. We looked at pictures of my dog, and he would reminisce about his days living in Florida. It was slow, but I felt like I was getting somewhere. He was excited to see me when I arrived. Even so, I was watching his body change slowly. He lost energy. He was getting thinner. It was a complicated feeling. But, again, this is hard work.
One week, Richard’s niece was sitting in his room visiting him. She was talking to him about his brother, who was currently in rehab at a nearby hospital and would soon move into the room across the hall. It didn’t seem like Richard wanted to talk about it that much after his niece left, so we watched TV. It was one of the quieter visits in a while. This is hard work.
The following week, I sat next to Richard as he ate breakfast, and he expressed more fear than he had ever vocalized before. He talked about how no one told him about what was happening with his treatments or how his brother was doing. He asked me a lot of questions that I didn’t have the answers to. I listened and was present, feeling a little lost. When he got quiet, I decided to ask him questions that he could answer. I asked him about his brother. About his family. About his favorite things to eat. About being excited for his brother to move in next door. His hand shook slightly as he spoke, answering some questions and only nodding to acknowledge others. I filled space with my words. This is hard work.
What happens next with Richard or his brother is out of everyone’s control. But, processing death is something that can be controlled. It is about having fear but not letting it own you. About realizing that care is about nurturing life, not painfully prolonging it. There were times where I felt helpless, wanting to have answers to all of Richard’s questions, take away all his pain, take away his uncertainty, and never have silence. But I couldn’t. So instead, I tried to do the harder work. The work of talking and listening and asking questions. The work of knowing when to fill space with stories and when to fill space with silence. The work of building a relationship with death that remembers that it is a part of life as much as anything else. Doing the work that can be done now and remembering the true point of care.