-1st experience- After training and months of waiting, I finally got to be an 11th hour volunteer. I have a couple of hospice patients I see on an on-going basis, but the 11th hour is the call that really gives you the opportunity to see if you’ve got what it takes. Today was my chance to do just that.
The call came at 10 a.m. and within the hour I was in the foothills of Ogden at a care center to meet “Tom” and “Linda”. The nurses were relieved to see me, and took a moment to change and turn Tom who was non-responsive and on oxygen. While the nurses toileted Linda, I held Tom’s hand, introduced myself to him and explained that I was a volunteer, and that I’d be there for Linda and himself while he made this transition.
Linda is extremely soft spoken and totally blind. They had been married 63 years and she of course wanted to be right at his side. The nurses had been unable to get her into bed the night before until they pushed their beds together. That day, they wheeled her in beside his bed where she could hold his hand and then I pulled my chair right up in front of her where I could hold her with one hand and touch him with the other. I had to lean right up into her face to hear her, but her precious words made it worth the effort as she cried and reminisced. We had a wonderful talk about their lives, the thinness of the veil at times like this, their mission, their spiritual experiences and the daughter they lost at birth. We discussed the likelihood of that baby girl coming this day to take her daddy home. She told me how she had already been there as an adult spirit as her grandmother had passed. Linda talked on about what a good husband and father Tom had been. I thought how blessed it is for his family to be able to honor him without a trace of hurt or remorse for wrongs that had occurred.
We’d talked about 45 minutes when the nurses brought Linda’s lunch. Since she wouldn’t leave him to go to the cafeteria, they were grateful that I was there to help her eat, tell her where her food was and hand her things. Nurses had come and gone throughout that time, but as she started her lunch, two hospice nurses arrived. I didn’t think Tom was close enough to death to pass on my shift, because his breathing had been steady and often there are longer and longer periods of apnea between breaths at the end. One nurse was showing me the signs of imminent death and told me that if they removed the oxygen, that he’d be gone within minutes, when he began to gasp for his final breaths. Linda was quietly eating, oblivious to this change, so I told her she might want to hold his hand again as he seemed to be passing. She did and I soon felt that there were people standing behind me. Realizing that one was their son, I quickly vacated my spot so that he could hold his mother and father. It was his birthday. I reminded him that the hearing is the last thing to go, so they could still talk to Tom. They both expressed their love for him and he was gone. What an honor to share those final bittersweet moments with that family! Oddly enough, the steady rain chose that time to become a brief thunder and hail shower and the door to the outside blew right open. I couldn’t help but wonder if Tom didn’t just want to make a dramatic exit…
Because she was surrounded by family, I took my leave shortly thereafter, but first I thanked Linda for allowing me to be with her and sharing her memories during those final intimate and sacred moments of Tom’s transition.
· Wally- Just a month ago, Wally was driving trucks in the South when he ran over a retaining wall. The police arrested him on suspicion of DUI and he sat in jail for three days. When his niece arrived from another state to pick him up, she knew something was wrong and the family had pre-admitted him to the University of Utah by the time he got back here to Utah. From there he went to the Huntsman Cancer Institute. They opened his head to remove a brain tumor, but it was wrapped around the motor skills center, so they closed him up and sent him to a nursing home. That is where I met him.
He was totally non-responsive except when I swabbed his mouth and he would sometimes bite down gently on the sponge. He seemed very grateful for the moisture. His mouth was wide open, and being a runner, his lungs were in good shape so he was breathing deeply and drying out terribly.
I talked to him, sang to him, held his hand and rubbed his arm. There wasn’t a whole lot of change in his breathing during that time except for occasional times of shallower breaths and occasional pauses between breaths.
Around 7:30 a.m., his daughter came in. She wanted to see him quickly before she went to work. I explained to her that when I’d arrived at 4:00 a.m., that his hands had been quite hot, and then showed her how cold his extremities had become- a sign of imminent death. She was worried then that maybe she shouldn’t go to work, so I called Hospice to see when the nurse would be in to give her opinion. Since she was coming soon, the girl’s mother had arrived, and I had a 9 a.m. meeting to get to, I left them around 8:15. As I pulled into the lot of the church the call came that he had passed on.
I feel like such a baby in hospice, but I’m so glad I had the confidence to educate her on her father’s signs, so that she was there for him as he passed.
· Emily As I walked down the hall of the care center near midnight I could hear a patient crying out, “Oh, help! Help me!” I walked into the very dark room to realize that it was my charge, Emily. She was surrounded by family, tattooed and pierced head to toe. I took a great-granddaughter out into the hallway to get phone numbers to keep them updated and asked a few questions including whether or not Emily had a religious affiliation. She laughed as she said, “No, not grandma.”
As they left, she continued to cry out for help. I pulled a chair up very close and held Emily’s hand. I spoke softly to her and promised I would be with her for the next four hours and I wouldn’t leave her alone. I sang any soothing, non-religious song I could think of. She calmed down and only occasionally called out but could be soothed with a reminder that I wouldn’t leave her alone.
The nurse came in to evaluate her and after Emily insisted she was in no pain, began to turn her. I was at the head of the bed when suddenly Emily, who was so distraught when I got there, was smiling into my face and yet it was obvious to both the nurse and me that she was looking through me or beyond me. She looked absolulety blissful as she said, ”Oh, it’s wonderful!”
Then she added, “It’s so painful!” The nurse and I looked at each other because she had just said she wasn’t in any pain, but then Emily added, “I mean not painful… ecstasy!”
I believe that this woman who had lived a very hard life was utterly overwhelmed by the unconditional love and acceptance she was now experiencing from beyond.
Later when it was just the two of us, she was still glowing. She said, “I see a little girl.”
I asked her who she thought the girl was and she answered, “My daughter.”
(I later confirmed with a nurse than she had lost a daughter some years before.)
She continued to talk and I pulled out my notebook to record the things she was saying so I could share them with her family:
“I want to go back…. She’s talking to me… She’s in ecstasy because I’m here… Oh it’s wonderful- I want to go home… I want to sleep now. Now I’m in ecstasy…. I’ve been so lonely all my life… Oh God, I feel so peaceful… The peacefulness is gone…it’ll be back- oh yeah, it will… I’m going to sleep now… Oh God, I’m not that far away… I feel so peaceful now…”
If I hadn’t already believed in an after-life and a God that loves us waiting to welcome us home, I would have become a believer after that experience! I was very grateful to be able to call her great-granddaughter and share those things. I believe it was a comfort to her and hopefully gave her hope of something bigger than this world.
· Helen was totally non-responsive the entire time I was with her. She didn’t move a muscle except to breathe. I knew she was LDS and so I sang her many hymns. At one point, I noticed that suddenly her mouth was moving. It appeared that she was silently singing with me! I finished the song and watched as she suddenly stopped breathing right then and silently slipped into the next stage of existence.
· Jean was still in her beautiful, flowery home when I met her. Her granddaughter and daughter were her caretakers and after we visited and reminisced, the daughter laid down in the next room. When I began to suspect that she would pass soon, we called the daughter back just moments before Jean very peacefully passed. As I dialed the hospice nurse to let her know, I looked at the clock. It was exactly 5 a.m. I asked if Jean was always punctual, and the granddaughter who couldn’t see the clock and had no idea of the time said, “She always got up at 5 a.m. sharp.”
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