Richard always wanted to hear about my life, my happenings, and my family. In this, he was consistent. He always expressed a gracious interest in me. Richard was an outwardly focused person.

There are many reasons for volunteering, from the feel-good reward of helping others to the chance to meet a wide variety of people from all walks of life and the opportunity to learn. Ultimately, I feel there is one standout aspect of Hospice of the Valley that ties everything together into a whole that is much more than the sum of all its parts. Community. A sense of belonging comes from being part of a family of volunteers. There is egalitarian togetherness in the Hospice of the Valley organization. And ultimately, we form a healing, supportive society with our patients and their family caregivers. All three of these nested communities are vital and contribute to my desire to volunteer with Hospice of the Valley.

Occasionally, a patient is taken off our hospice service or specifically removed from the volunteer visiting sub-service. The reasons are varied. Sometimes patients are remarkably better and will live well past the six-month limit Medicare places on hospice. Other times, patients will decide that hospice is not for them and want to continue fighting their disease. Occasionally patients may become less amenable to visitors because they feel tired or embarrassed that they can no longer participate as they used to. Though we often visit with patients who can no longer join us in conversation, we have to respect the patient's wishes, even if we feel there is more we can do for them. In hospice care, the patients are in control and their needs always come first. Still, it can be saddening when one can no longer visit with a patient to which one has become attached. How I approach my patients helps me deal with the occasional patient I don't get to see all the way to the end of their time in this world.

The median time on a hospice service in the United States is 18 days, barely three weeks. This means that half of all hospice patients die within 18 days. Remember that this means some will die in 7 days, some in 16, and some in just one or two days. I have had my share of patients who died before I could visit them a second time. 

We all can face death and support those who are dying. Anything that gets in the way of that ability or belief in that ability is just societal noise.

Over the last year, I spent more time on my Hospice volunteer work with patients and their families. The time I spent with patients and their loved ones proved to be instructive on many levels. I participated in life celebrations for four patients. A change in Hospice providers gave me the opportunity to take a new round of training. I also gained an appreciation for the role of Volunteer Coordinator. 

Home hospice is not a full-time care service. Most of the caretaking duties for the patient fall to family members and other loved ones. Caring for a terminally ill loved one is hugely taxing emotionally and physically. Stress and exhaustion are inevitable, and burnout is a real possibility. As a result, one of the most essential services that Hospice Volunteers can offer a patient's family is respite. These services entail a volunteer spending time with the patient so the family caregivers can do something else, preferably an activity that helps them decompress. 

Sometimes in life, we encounter people who face immense life stressors, and somehow, they keep going; they rise up and address the nightmare. They inspire us with this superhuman strength and courage. These people also often demonstrate devotion that transcends all else in their lives while the rest of us can only stare in awe. When we see what these people do, we think that if it was us, we would fold. Nowhere is this more often on display than in a Hospice service. 

As a Hospice volunteer, it is impossible to form a deep connection with every patient. The primary reason for this is that many patients enter Hospice care very close to their end-of-life transition. Volunteers don't have enough time with these short-lived patients to form enduring bonds or complete much death work. Still, spending even a brief time with these patients is valuable to the patients and their families. For the volunteer, the experience, however brief, can also be rewarding. 

My first "young" patient was 53, uncomfortably close to my age. I realized that I was using the advanced age of my patients as a crutch, as an excuse not suppress my outrage at the unfairness. This kept me from realizing that I subconsciously wanted to fix my patients to some extent rather than accept them and their path entirely.