{"id":1331,"date":"2020-03-21T10:32:12","date_gmt":"2020-03-21T14:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/?p=1331"},"modified":"2020-04-11T13:09:02","modified_gmt":"2020-04-11T17:09:02","slug":"the-tea-that-never-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/the-tea-that-never-was\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tea That Never Was"},"content":{"rendered":"

My volunteer partner and I were finishing up our check-ins for our visit and were on our way to visit our last patient for that day, Martha<\/em>. Visits with Martha<\/em> in the past had been genial but otherwise largely uneventful. She loved to discuss relationships, both ours and hers. Alert, responsive, hilarious, and always appreciative of our visits, Martha<\/em> was one of the patients we would always look forward to visiting.<\/p>\n

Time, however, we weren\u2019t alone \u2013 her daughter Debbie<\/em> was visiting that day as well. She herself was a grandmother, making Martha<\/em> a great grandmother, and had more time now to visit Martha<\/em> as her children were settling down with families of her own. We noticed that Martha<\/em> wasn\u2019t as communicative as she had been even last week, but Debbie<\/em> took her place and spoke on her behalf, providing us with more interesting tidbits of Martha\u2019s<\/em> past, her mannerisms, favorite jokes, and her endearing opinion of a mysterious French facility member at the assisted living home.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember exactly when or how the shift happened, but at some point, the tone of our conversation suddenly shifted from one of casual, warm banter to a sorrowful reflection on life\u2019s uncertainty. Perhaps it was a word that Martha<\/em> just couldn\u2019t get out or a portrait on the wall that I pointed out, but I sensed a rising tension throughout the stay, until the pressure burst through Debbie\u2019s<\/em> tear ducts. Her husband had passed away a few weeks prior, and her mother\u2019s condition was declining rapidly. Suddenly, Martha<\/em>, with her limited vocabulary, became the comforting, motherly figure, whereas we, as visitors, were mere passive observers.<\/p>\n

There are so many things that I wish I said then, but it was difficult to process how to respond when the atmosphere had been entirely different only a few moments earlier, and when both figures suffering were older and supposedly more resilient than us young volunteers. Plans for proper bedside manner seem to go out the window when there\u2019s someone crying right in front of you\u2014all I could provide was my presence. Indeed, when loss is subject to the personal interpretation of any given individual, it\u2019s hard to say whether anyone can really do much better. It is not always going to get better, and we often do not know your pain, but we hope that by being there we can alleviate it, if only slightly.<\/p>\n

The tears dried, we changed subjects, and Debbie\u2019s<\/em> mood improved significantly. It is truly amazing the burdens that we collect as we linger in this world, and how we get better at controlling our feelings about them. We promised Martha<\/em> we would return and have tea, as she used to love doing with her friends when she was younger, and she was ecstatic. Unfortunately, the next time we saw her, she was relocated into a more intensive unit, and had lost her mobility and remaining communicative skills. I felt bad that I didn\u2019t get back in time, that I couldn\u2019t get tea with Martha<\/em> before she was lost.<\/p>\n

I never saw Debbie<\/em> again, nor did I see Martha<\/em>, and there\u2019s a strange lack of closure that I got from this visit. Looking back at this experience, contextualized among others, I realize that one of the biggest takeaways from this program has been becoming accustomed to this awkward impermanence of connection\u2014so many of the connections we establish naturally have a well-defined beginning, \u201cgood times\u201d, and end, with heartfelt farewells. This privilege doesn\u2019t exist in medical settings, and certainly not during global pandemics. We didn\u2019t depart over tea; we departed over a pained holding of hands, her barely processing the event. But, as wayfarers drifting through the confusing and apparently awkwardly choreographed journey of life, I am content with the small joys I had and the privilege of imparting before departing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My volunteer partner and I were finishing up our check-ins for our visit and were on our way to visit our last patient for that day, Martha. Visits with Martha in the past had been genial but otherwise largely uneventful. She loved to discuss relationships, both ours and hers. Alert, responsive, hilarious, and always appreciative … Continue reading “The Tea That Never Was”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"school":[7],"program_year":[31],"class_list":["post-1331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospice","school-princeton","program_year-31"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1331"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1432,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions\/1432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1331"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=1331"},{"taxonomy":"program_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_year?post=1331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}