I've just finished 2 weeks of volunteering at the local hospice. It was such a powerful experince in so many ways but what overwhelmed me most was the difference in perspecitve when you're on the other side of things, as it were. I always acknowleged that hospices were happy places but never before had I noticed just how much laughter fluttered through the corridors. It was such a pleasure to feel genuinly useful, even when the jobs were completely mundane you could instantly see the difference that cup of tea had made to the relative who'd recieved a shock, or how by simply remembering a pateints favourite flavour fortisip you could save them so much frsutration of trying to ask when they're speech has become impaired. It was also a very gentle introduction to death as an everyday occurence. In modern socitey we have become very separated from death as a process, what with older relatives living away rather than in the home, and I think it leaves a lot of people scared. Whilst it would choke me up as I read the list of the deceased and stumbled across a name of someone I had cared for, it was also important that I got to see them fade. No one died in pain or even suddenly, it was just as if a light had dimmed; they had good deaths; it seems strange how much emphasis we place on having a good birth and yet so much stigma surronds the possibility of having a good death. I think you have to have a very specific personality to work in a place like that. The volunteers that I had the fortune to work with were truley wonderful people. I have never before met so many warm people in one place. They do a fantastic job and I hope to return and help them over Christmas. Volunteering here went so much further than just gaining experience fora future career, it was a way for me to repay some of what the hospice movement gave to my family and ultimately it comes down to the compassion between human begins, having done it once I can't imagine not helping again. A quote posted in the volunteers kitchen just summerised it so perfectly:
''Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile,
a kind word, an honest compliement, or the smallest
act of caring, all of which have the potential to
turn a life around.''
Leo F. Buscaglia
