Celeste was my first. I was her last.
I had just arrived for my first day at this hospice ward. I’d worked in hospice wards before. The last one was new, with each patient settled into private rooms. It smelled of death. Staff treated patients with great care and respect, but I saw things I wish I could unsee. One woman lay naked in her bed, and although she was otherwise unaware of her surroundings, she still did her best to cover the private parts of her body. Could it be shame and embarrassment can outlive our other cognitions?
Things in this second hospice ward were different. It wasn’t new and shiny. It seemed old and tired. I didn’t pick up any unpleasant aromas, but I did sense weariness in everyone who worked there. They spoke of patients as if they were no longer real people. Maybe they’d been around death too long and it had sucked out their compassion. I’m sure they’d adopted this seeming coldness as a protective measure to keep them from feeling heartbreak. But I’m also certain, their burnout didn’t offer the level of care and understanding these fragile patients in their care deserved.
I had just put down my purse when a nurse entered and announced the arrival of a new patient. “Her name is Celeste. She’s mentally gone, and won’t be alive long, so no need to talk to her.”
When I was an undergrad student, our class watched a beautiful short film called Peege starring Jeanette Nolan. Peege, blind, with diminished mental capacity, lived in a nursing home. When her family came to visit, they treated her with condescension and, instead of talking to her, they talked at her or about themselves. She seemed out of it and unable to understand what they were saying. When they left, one of her grandsons, played by Bruce Davison, remained. As he shared his memories of times the two of them spent together, Peege came alive. Even after he left, her face showed he had awakened something in her.
Peege’s story never left me and the message I took from it was to always speak to a person as if they are still there, even if that somewhere appears hidden too far inside to reach.
Armed with the memory of Peege, I entered Celeste’s room. Ignoring the nurse’s admonishment that we needn’t bother talking to Celeste, I got close. Her straight, long blonde hair cascaded past her shoulders, her body so slight I could scarcely see its outline under the covers. Her eyes were closed. “Hi, Celeste, I’m Ginni.”
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