My first.....

Years ago I had my very first Hospice client. I had only cared for babies and my own children, but a friend contacted me asking if I would be willing to spend some time with an elderly woman who was in Hospice care. She was a Holocaust survivor.

I was so touched....yes, I absolutely would love to spend time with her and I felt deeply privileged to do so. How had I been entrusted with such a gift? I was "just" a housewife. I had spent the past 18 years at home with my children, raising them, homeschooling some conglomeration of the four of them, my oldest had just graduated at age 16 and was working full time for an apple ranch up near our home. My youngest was 2 years old.

I began by spending evenings with my new friend. We spent many simple times together. I would read out-loud to her...she loved Edgar Allen Poe of all things. We would watch old movies and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire!" She crocheted a hat for my little one that I still have to this day. Together we would cook her dinner...which looked more like our own version of the Food Channel's "Bubbe's Cooking School." She sat in her wheelchair in the kitchen and gave me directions, teaching me how to make fruit compote, baked apples, borscht, how to salt the freshly cut cabbage, letting it sit for 20 minutes so all of the "gassy liquids" will leach out. She loved to eat pickled herring on toasted rye bread with a slice of Havarti cheese and tomato.

My friend had many stories, she had lived many many eventful years. Growing up in Europe, a beautiful childhood filled with love, marriage, birthing children, losing children, losing loved ones, surviving torture and mistreatment that we can't begin to fathom, searching for those she had lost, being found by the one who loved her quite literally to the ends of the earth.

When I met her she was living with an adult child in her own little home on their property. This child was her pride and joy. She often sounded like the stereotypical Jewish momma...."Please please, sit with us! This is my son the doctor" as she patted his cheek.

It was here with this woman that I learned what a precious time the end of life could really be. When I would leave each day after getting her tucked into bed, I would kiss her on the forehead and say, "See you tomorrow."

She would reply, "If Im not pushing up daisies!"

I was with her for more than three years. Eventually of course, her needs began to change and she needed more and more help just to perform the simplest of tasks and self care. She was asking for more medication just to be comfortable. The Hospice nurses worked with me and taught me everything I needed to know to care for her. They explained that her body had been conditioned to survive, to not let go of life. It was unheard of to have a patient be in Hospice care for three plus years.

I began to realize that I could do anything with a pair of rubber gloves on. My years of babies and changing diapers were finally paying off! lol I learned how to change the sheets on a bed with the patient in the bed, how to give total bed care, how to roll the patient back and forth to adjust and clean, how wrinkles in the sheet beneath could be extremely problematic to the skin, how to use a draw sheet to move the patient to avoid pressing or pulling on their fragile skin, what relief the different Hospice meds could provide and when to implement using them.

Finally her time on this earth was coming to an end.  There was another caregiver there with me, who was much older and very experienced. She was so kind and asked me if I wanted to stay and we could walk through the next hours with our friend together. We worked side by side, caring for our friend through her last hours. When it seemed that death was imminent, we called her child to come and be with her...he came immediately, and as he walked through her bedroom door and knelt by her bed and held her hand he said, "Mom, Im here." His momma, who loved him with every fiber of her being, quite literally, who had been comatose for the past several days, threw herself up and forward in the bed and kissed him on the cheek and laid back and took her last breath. It was the most dramatic passing I have ever seen. It was a grand testament to her deep love for this one living person that she had left in this world.

The caregiver and I gave the child some time, then we gently washed our friend and prepared her for the mortuary to come and pick her up. We wanted her to be clean and dressed, with her hair brushed, and to leave her home this last time with her dignity firmly in tact. This woman who had survived so many cruelties.....we wanted her to leave surrounded by love and respect and honor.

The son and I stepped outside to wait for the mortuary van to arrive and when we opened the door, there was a full, end to end, vibrant rainbow right outside the front door. It was stunning and it was obviously a gift, a very spiritual moment that we both were very aware of. Something sacred had just happened. Was she letting her child know that she was all right, at peace, that she was with her God and there was nothing but beauty and no fear and he could take comfort in those thoughts? He thought so....and he was so grateful.

I will never forget this friend of mine who could be sharp and intolerant, who had such high standards for behavior, who would look at me out of the side of her eyes and give a smirk..."Turn on Ina Mae Garten will you? Then sit down with me and we will drink out tea!"

Little did I know the gifts I was being given during my time with her. The world she was opening up to me....caring for the dying, hearing their stories, carrying them with me, cherishing each life lived and being honored to walk them home.