Death. It’s a scary word to most of us, with it comes fear, worry, and suspense. Once people become old enough to understand death’s extent, death’s impact, the fear seems to grow, presenting itself in various ways. When I began as a volunteer in the VA Hospice, I expected myself to be fearful, and I expected the residents to be fearful. After all, they knew the end was coming for them. However, my first day on 5B was a completely different experience.
I met the woman who was meant to be training me, let’s call her Alexis. She was a very nice older woman who volunteered on the weekends because her son was in the army and she wanted to give back to people who were also in the service. She was sweet, full of energy, and looking to brighten the day of all the residents. Immediately, she put my mind at ease and I became less fearful. Throughout the day, I became more and more comfortable, and Alexis finally decided to let me make some rounds by myself. That was when I met the resident who has had the greatest impact on my time as a hospice volunteer.
Rob (name change for privacy) was quiet, like me, and he was not keen on sharing. I think that most people found him to be boring for this reason. He didn’t want to share about his time in the service or how hard it was to be dying. Instead, he wanted to work on his crossword puzzles with sitcoms playing in the background (Roseanne was his least favorite). Rob was always willing to share his crossword and word search books with me, allowing me to discover a deep love of crosswords which I always convinced myself I was horrible at.
Spending my time doing crosswords with Rob became the highlight of my week. I would check in on other residents, and between every round of check ins and conversations with other residents, I would do crosswords with Rob. It became routine. I would do crosswords with him and he would offer me his dinner (which I would of course refuse no matter how much he insisted that I needed it more than he did).
I always knew that there was a likelihood of my residents dying. After all, that is the reason for their residency. When I went home for winter break, I tried to put it out of my brain. I had been hanging out with Rob for months by then, if he was going to pass soon, wouldn’t I notice? He never seemed to be in worse condition or hint to me that his time was coming soon. To me, it seemed entirely improbable that I would return from winter break and begin walking to his room, only to realize another person had taken his place. Someone I didn’t recognize, had no connection to, and was unwilling to spend time not talking and just doing mindless crosswords with me; but that’s exactly what happened.
It took some time for me to come to terms with Rob being gone, and it only took meeting and building connections with other residents to make me feel better about this situation. I can only hope that the same effect Rob had on me was reflected back on him and that I was able to make a difference in his last few months.