Extraordinary kindness in word and in touch and in deed. It is about paying attention and then, in a busy world, making time center on what might make our residents happy…

A few weeks ago, it was preparing all the stuff for John’s children so that they could enjoy a taco bar luncheon on what turned out to be the last day that they had with their Dad.

It was helping Maria find the perfect pillow while secretly confiding in her that we suspected that it didn’t even exist.

It was putting The Notebook seven nights in a row on the television so that Tom could have another good and cathartic cry.

People want their hands to be held and attention to be paid. They want an arm over their shoulder and to be held onto tightly.

It is also probably why Helen, one evening before she died, told one staff member, “I think you should make this a rule “Every night you should say to each of us, Good night and sweet dreams and then kiss us on the forehead.”

Marie asked me today if I though that she would possibly be going home.  I held her hand and said, "No. No, I don't." "I didn't think so,"she said gravely.

Tonight she asked me how much time that she had.  I told her that she is "at the end of her life in the large sense, but from my experience you are not dying yet."

"What wil it be like?"

"Well, you'll sleep a lot more than you are now.  And you will start to be somewhat detached from the things of this earth.  For example, you won't laugh at my jokes anymore."

"Ha!" she said.  "I wonder what I'll be given to do in heaven."

Right now several of the people who have come to Sarah House for hospice care are women who are well into their nineties.  To our delight, despite everything, they are chatty, witty, delightful and delighted. 

One of these good women has been sharing her poetry with us.  She calls it doggerel but we think it is pretty good.  It is also often touching.

A sample:

“The phone is strangely silent.

It no longer clamors as before.