After Kenny passed and I no longer worked as a caregiver for Mark I volunteered at Sangre de Cristo Hospice. I was a volunteer in the 11th hour program. This just means that I would have finished my job when the client passed to the other side. My job was to set with the client while the caregiver ran errands or just took a break from every day life. Being the kind, caring person I am, I was sometimes called to the bedside when my client was taking their final breathe. Unlike a lot of people I have an acceptance of dying and a secure knowledge that we are all going to a better place.
In this capacity, my last job with hospice was for a man on the southside who cared for his 90 year old invalid mother. He had several bad experiences with people he hired to set with her when he needed some one. Seems he had several bad experiences with ladies taking coffee cups or small items just "walking off". When he enrolled in the hospice program he was adamant that whoever came had to be honest. After several volunteers were sent there he had given up on hospice was at the end of his rope as far as strangers in his home. Hospice threw their hands in the air as it seemed to be a lost cause. And then they tried one last hurrah, Lou Mercer.
By this time I had mostly given up hospice work, but Jolene asked me if I would just give this guy a break and if it did not work out they would let me leave. I agreed. The man called and explained that hospice had given him my name and number and would I just come and meet his mother. What did I have to lose? I agreed.
When I arrived at the chosen day and time, he opened the door and looked me up and down. He was a regular looking man of Spanish descent and looked fairly harmless, so I went in. Mom was in the kitchen in a wheel chair and eating her breakfast which consisted of a pop tart and a cup of coffee. I took a chair at the end of the table and she looked up at me. She immediately smiled and her face lit up! "Blue! Blue!" I should note here that my eyes are blue and they stay that way as long as I am happy. Sadness causes them to take a hazel hue, but I am rarely sad. So that day they were blue.
The son explained all the problems he had with sticky fingers and I explained that I did not have that problem. He told me he would pay me to set with mother. I told him I was a volunteer and did not accept money. And so it began. Momma and I were friends and he felt comfortable leaving us alone. When he returned from whatever errand he had been on, he was surprised to see mother still happy.
Since I would not take his money, he fell into the habit of buying me fruit juice. The kind he bought was from Sam's and was called "Naked" because it had no artificial ingredients. We fell into an easy relationship since his mother liked me and I liked her. She could be a bit cantankerous at times, but I understood how hard it must be on both her and him. I was happy to do what I could to ease the burden for both of them. And the bottle of juice became a joke with us.
"Hey, Lou! I got Naked for you!" "OMG! I hope that is in a bottle!"
He did not call me to often, because he felt he was imposing on me. I explained that I had no other clients and I actually had come to love his mother. I think what we developed was a comradery. Mutual respect and a genuine caring for each other. I met and loved his sisters and brother. I am not sure they knew just what to think of the relationship, but they accepted it at face value. His sister came in laughing one time because they had been shopping and he had to run to Sam's before they could go home because, "I have to get Naked for Lou!"
I was a part of their life for several years before Momma passed. She was my comrade. He was my knight in shining armor.
It is a part of my life that I shall miss until I take my last breathe. But that is how grief is, isn't it? At first it is sharp like a knife and cuts to the quick, but then it begins to become a dull ache, and finally it is just a big, empty hole in your soul.
I still wait for the phone to ring and the voice on the other end telling me to look at the moon.
"I see the moon; the moon sees me. The moon sees someone I want to see. So God bless the moon, and God bless me, and God bless the someone I want to see."
