Doing Nothing in Hospice
I did nothing.
Well, that’s not correct since I finished several chapters in the book I was reading.
I did nothing.
That’s not correct either, since I quietly eased down the hallway on several occasions to listen to the patient’s breathing. I was cautioned that he had a soft voice and would always say he was fine or didn’t need anything, even if he wasn’t fine and had needs. Best to listen carefully!
I did nothing.
Well, unless being ready to answer the door before a visitor pressed the doorbell or prepared to answer the phone before it rang for too long counted as something.
As a hospice volunteer on one of my first assignments, I mostly did nothing. After my training (I’ll mention more about that in a bit), I was ready to help! The Volunteer Coordinator had called, asked if I could go over to a home for an hour or two later in the week. I said sure. My task? Make sure the patient wasn’t alone. While I sat in the living room, present and available if anything happened, the patient’s weary wife did her grocery shopping.
I read a book. I stood in the hallway and listened. And then I welcomed a patient’s wife home, helped bring the groceries in, and departed. Before leaving, the wife profusely thanked me . . . for my nothing.
The patient died a few weeks later. It was my only visit with him.
Maybe a month later, I received a request from the hospice’s Volunteer Coordinator: one of the other volunteers couldn’t do their regular weekly visit with a patient. This fella was by himself for a predictable time during the week and everyone—the family and hospice medical staff—didn’t want him to be alone. Get a volunteer!
I filled in.
We had a fun afternoon. He said I could visit him anytime. This particular patient loved to talk, especially about his time during World War II in the Army Air Corps as a pilot. Bad news: he was hard of hearing. Disappointing news: several of his previous volunteers were always keen to talk but 1) he sometimes couldn’t hear them and 2) they didn’t know much about World War II.
Good news! I’m loud! Better news: my father served in the Army Air Corps, I’m a low-key history buff, and a member in a prior church I’d served had flown the exact same plane, a B-24 bomber. I knew stuff! The patient told story after story. What a guy . . .
The patient died a few weeks later. It was my only visit with him.
My volunteering eventually led to a job offer. As a United Methodist clergy, I was officially appointed to become a Bereavement Support Specialist. It was where I retired from ministry.
But I always remember the importance of volunteers. They are a key part of hospice’s work with individuals and families.
While I can only speak about my singular experience, the effort* to become a volunteer was rigorous! I attended required training sessions with other potential volunteers. I had to get letters of recommendations. A criminal background check was done. (Yes, I passed.)
Why is the hospice so diligent with training?
Picture me back in that patient’s living room, reading a book and doing nothing. For over an hour, I had complete access to a family’s property. A helpless patient slept in a back room. It doesn’t take much to imagine the worst things that could happen when you “invite” a stranger into your home. A family, overwhelmed by a loved one’s dying, trusts that hospice will send a trustworthy person.
Picture me back in that veteran’s home, where he’s telling me tales about one of the scariest times of his life. He’s scared now, too. Once, he “beat” death and came home from war. Now death is beating him, and he is at his most vulnerable.
I appreciated my training. Families welcomed me into their homes and trusted me. It was a privilege to be a hospice volunteer. Just like the professional hospice staff, volunteers enter into people’s lives during a tender and traumatic time. We are not there to tell them what to do, or tell them what to believe, but to listen to their needs and attempt to give them as much control as possible as their lives careen out of control.
Two patients died soon after my visits. My training covered that too. And since I’m a pastor who’s been in emergency rooms and hospitals, I anticipated death would be part of my experiences. But no volunteer training truly prepares anyone for visiting a patient one week—maybe just sitting with them, maybe playing card games, maybe listening to family stories—and then getting a call from the Volunteer Coordinator saying there’s no need for the next visit. Even my background in ministry didn’t stop the tears or sadness when a “relationship” abruptly ended.
Visiting the dying isn’t for everyone. But volunteering in hospice covers a lot of territory. There are paperwork needs, answering phones, assisting at events, and a host of other options. Every aspect of volunteering matters and helps a hospice care for families and patients. Sometimes, it will feel like nothing happens. But, at least for me, that really wasn’t true. While I’d mostly read my book, the patient’s wife accomplished a simple, normal, necessary chore.
Doing nothing can be a very precious gift.
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*If you check out a local hospice to volunteer your time, and the training is “easy,” I’d be a tad leery about that agency. The training is rightly rigorous.
A version of this week’s musing was adapted from a chapter in my book: A Companion for the Hospice Journey, is available at Amazon.