I Bring Them Lunch, Tea, and a Smile If They Want It

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

Eileen spent the last five days of her life at the Marie Curie Hospice in the very posh Hampstead area of London. During the time she was there, I got to understand why she had already stipulated in her will that a fair sized donation be given to them. The entire staff was attentive, friendly, and sympathetic, and the only time I could fault them was when Eileen had actually breathed her last and we couldn’t seem to get a nurse to come to her room. It turned out that, because it was late on a Sunday night, there were only two nurses on the ward, and both were occupied with other emergencies.
I forgave them for that, and over the next few months, I went by there for a variety of reasons, mostly because they seemed to be genuinely concerned with how I was getting on. There was one lady from the hospice that volunteered to help me move things out of Eileen’s flat (she also took time off to attend Eileen’s funeral) and into the hospice’s charity shop in Islington. We filled up her car six times. During the summer, the hospice sponsored a group called “Walk and Talk,” where others who had lost a loved one to cancer would meet near Hampstead Heath, one of the most stunningly beautiful city parks I’ve ever seen. We’d walk through the Heath for about an hour, and then meet for an additional half hour at the hospice. The exercise and the interaction helped us all bond and loosen up, plus there was the irony that one lady in the group was named Eileen and had lost a partner named Brian.
“Walk & Talk” went for six weeks one day a week, and one of the group members also worked at the hospice as what they call a “ward volunteer.” Somehow, this interested me. If I can persuade a group of drunk strangers to like me enough to listen to me ramble for 30-45 minutes, how difficult would it be to talk to people who are pretty much confined to their beds? A captive audience, yes, but no pressure to say something funny in the first 15 seconds or risk being ignored and/or heckled.
With gaps in my comedy calendar big enough to drive the Starship Enterprise through, I needed something to distract me from feeling sorry about that dream being over. I applied toward the end of the summer, and only got the go-ahead when I came back from the US three weeks ago. During that time, they needed to determine for sure that I’d never done anything bad in my entire life. Or at least nothing illegal. Well, sure I have, but I’ve never been arrested, and that’s really all they needed to know. That, and to be sure that I was legally in this country. I’m the first American they’ve ever hired.
December 5th, also known as “today,” was my first day. I was a bit concerned about how you dance around the fact that most of the people here are on borrowed time. Most are old, their bodies giving out, and much like my dad, hoping it all ends soon. Yet with two of the patients, I struck up enough rapport that they actually asked me to pull up a chair and sit with them. Neither of them were terminal, which probably was a contributing factor to their willingness to chat. I remember wondering when I first applied if I’d be able to stomach the presence of those who were in visibly bad shape, or if I could understand those who couldn’t speak above a whisper. Somehow I managed to not only understand what they were saying, but I could also look directly at a man with huge growths all over his body, and talk to him like I would anyone else. It also helped that the bulk of the patients were Londoners, thus had accents that I could navigate.
I’ll only be doing this one day a week, but I gotta believe there’s some kind of “My Name Is Earl” type of karma to all this. Not that I was ever a shit who needed a total cleansing, but I have felt many times that I’ve done more taking than giving. When I bring in someone’s lunch, or a cup of tea, or in the case of one woman who probably has only a few days left, read her the menu, the gratitude that is shown gives me as much of a good feeling about my worth as any standing ovation. I hope I continue to feel the same way over the coming weeks and months.

December 5th, 2013



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