One of my most meaningful interactions during my hospice experience was a visit with a couple who had been together for 50 years, but who had only recently gotten married at the care center last year. While the husband Jack was deteriorating at a much faster rate than his wife Lisa, Lisa was able to communicate stories about his childhood and his adult life.
Jack had been involved with radio engineering. They had grown up as neighbors and eventually fell in love as they entered young adulthood. While the wife was initially reserved, when I asked about her past, she began to open up. I discovered how she used to sing for her church, which had been a passion of hers when she was younger. I asked if she would be comfortable singing one of her church hymns to me and she began singing in a booming voice, which at first startled me given her frail body. She sang a couple of songs, in a clear, melodic voice. I spent the rest of the afternoon listening to her sing, and playing games with her and her husband, who had a small smile on his face throughout the rest of the visit. When we went to play bingo, Jack would not leave the table until he knew that Lisa was leading the way.
My interactions with Jack and Lisa taught me how small gestures and acts of kindness can help patients discover meaning in the face of death. Although their physical bodies were failing them, this couple did not allow their spirits to wither. As I have often found when I volunteer at either hospitals or care centers, I enter the experience expecting that I will be making an impact on the patients, but leave feeling that the patients have made just as important of an impact on me. Especially in hospice care, where the patients are so close to the end of their lives, meaningful human interaction helps the patients maintain their dignity, even if they have lost other physical abilities of their bodies.
I have also discovered how recreating old memories, when possible, helps a patient cope with the present. While many of the patients we visit in hospice have lost the ability to form new memories, and some have also lost long term memories, those who are able to reminisce on the past more easily grapple with their future.
While working out the logistics of visits weren’t always easy, I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to participate in the hospice program. While I am always grateful to be surrounded by the vitality and wisdom of Princeton students, taking time out of my week to visit these patients has introduced me to a new understanding of vitality and spirituality.
My time at hospice reminds me of a Jewish prayer that is typically said during the time of shiva, (Jewish mourning):
“As long as we live, they too will live; for they are now are a part of us; as we remember them.”
Even though our patients are close to the end of their lives, I feel a certain peace knowing that we will carry on their legacies and stories.