As I begin to think about my potential career path, working at the pre-med hospice was the first step to help hone my career aspirations. One day as I volunteered there, I walked past a lovely lady who laid in bed silently, staring into the abyss through her glassy eyes. Her despondent stare pierced my heart and without realizing it, I seated myself next to her bed. Initially, I attempted to engage in conversations with her, but to no avail. Then I decided to hold her hands and talk about my own life, the people I love. After a few visits, she started gazing at me, smiling. From then on, every time I visited her, she smiled peacefully at me. I was satisfied. I felt ecstatic. I felt an identity forming within me, a burning fire to warm people around me.
Through this, I began to realize that medicine could be the right field for me. My experience with patients at the healthcare facilities for the elderly helped me appreciate the satisfaction of working closely with patients at the end of their life. Through this, I began to understand the humanity of people and their diverse perspectives to the end-of-life care. People are beyond their age, their illness, their BPM; they’re individuals with unique narratives and outlooks on life. This appreciation allows me to go into every visit with an open-mind about the types of perspectives I could have.
Additionally, through my experience, I’ve noticed that sometimes the best thing we can do for someone is to just listen. Rather than dictating how they should live their lives, listening is key. I feel like that patience is developed through my volunteer work with Ascend Hospice. With each visit, I see such a wide array of patients that it becomes impossible to predict someone’s life. For example, after my first visit with a patient, she told me about her family’s and her early athletic adventures. However, the next time I see her, she completely ignored her athletic history and instead focused on her beautiful children who came to visit. For her, what is beautiful is not stagnant. At various moments, she could view different aspects of her life as meaningful and impactful to her, and that is what she holds on to because of her fleeting memory. I think that is a beautiful reality to understand because it captures such beauty in their experience and illuminates only the brightest memories.
Life is beautiful, and the only way we can hear its melody is if we sit down and listen. An engaging touch with the source of beauty or a nod of affirmation often will enhance the brightness of life. That’s what Ascend has taught me: to appreciate the ephemeral beauty of life.