TheBanyanTree: Another hospice story

[Monique Colver]

I posted this on my blogs, but in case you don't go there:


Last week I went to meet Mr M. I’m a substitute volunteer while his usual
volunteer is on vacation. He was sitting in a blue chair next to his bed in
the nursing home, a shy older black man who has no family locally, no
friends. When I say older, I mean older than me of course, since otherwise
it’s meaningless. The hospice chaplain introduced me as his sub volunteer,
and I shook his hand and told him it was a pleasure to meet him.

She left us alone for a few minutes. He looked around, avoiding me. I asked
if there was anything I could bring him, if there was anything he needed or
wanted. He thought about it, shook his head slightly, and finally said,
“Stamps. I could use some stamps.”

Probably a bit too enthusiastically I said, “Stamps! Okay, I’ll bring you a
few stamps.” This is good, the asking for stamps. He’s decided to try
writing to members of his family, his youngest sister, and seeing what
happens. It was too hot to take him outside, and I told him that perhaps
when I returned we could go for a walk. It’d be in a wheelchair, of course,
so technically only one of us would be walking.

Today I went back. He was sitting in the same chair, watching a National
Geographic show on television. I took his hand, and told him it was nice to
see him again. I sat on the bed which was right next to him, perhaps it’s
his bed, I’m not sure – there’s two in the room, and just him. I searched
around in my purse and found the few stamps I’d brought from him.

“These were all I had today, but I can bring you more.” He said that was
fine, since he only had three letters to send. At least I think that’s what
he said.

Mr M is 61, and has terminal cancer. He lives at the nursing home, alone,
and I call him Mr M_______ to accord him the respect I think he deserves but
hasn’t received. He’s estranged from his family, and he tells me that he
doesn’t think he can write to his son and tell him his condition, so he’s
written to his younger sister, knowing that she’ll know how to tell his son.
They’re all back east, there’s no one close by, even if they were close
emotionally. I wonder how his sister will respond to his letter. I don’t
know his family history, I don’t know how down and out he was before he
ended up here, but I know it was pretty close to the bottom.

I don’t ask that. I ask him if it’s okay if we talk. I ask him how long he’s
lived here, and I tell him how long I’ve lived here. I ask him if he likes
dogs, and he tells me he had a puppy once, and the puppy, being
rambunctious, ran out into the street. Since then, he hasn’t wanted another.
I feel as if I’ve put my foot in my mouth, but I persevere. Me, who doesn’t
talk to people.

He doesn’t want to go outside today, he doesn’t feel the best and would
rather not. I tell him that’s fine, we can do whatever he wants.

The TV’s still on, and it’s a show about exploration, and Florida. I ask him
if he’s ever been to Florida. He says no. He was north, in New York, where
he was born, and he came west and found it helped his asthma. I tell him
where I’ve lived.

I ask him about the food at the nursing home. “How’s the food here,” I ask,
and he says, slowly and with much thought, “It’s okay, most of it. Some of
it,” and he pauses to regroup, “is really good, some isn’t.”

His speech is slow, as if he’s not used to communicating by this rather
obscure method, as if English is a second language, but he’s alert and
clear, and able to have a conversation. I’m not sure if he wants to or not.
He’s accommodating, that’s for sure. I won’t let him off too easily though.

I want to tell him that everything will be okay, that everything works out,
but I can’t. For one thing, it’s not true. We watch TV for a bit, and he
shifts in his chair.

“Is there anything you can’t get here that you’d like?” I ask. I’m
determined to get something for him, since it’s all I can do.

“Well, I haven’t had a cigarette since November,” he says, looking at me,
then away, then back, not sure where to look as he makes this confession.
“I’ve stopped before, but never for this long. Usually when I get sick I
stop, then when I get better I start again. Two months is about the most I
haven’t smoked.”

It’s his asthma that’s made him stop smoking every so often. Now it’s the
nursing home, which has a bit more clout, apparently. I’ve already been
warned that he’ll ask for cigarettes and really, we don’t care, and by “we,”
I mean hospice, but the nursing home, that’s another matter. There’s no
smoking in the nursing home, and if I were able to smuggle cigarettes in I’d
have to smuggle Mr M outside to smoke them, because what if the other
patients saw and wanted one too? Instead I tell him that I know it’s hard to
not be able to smoke, especially since helping people not smoke is what my
husband does for a living.

“I’m not sure I can get cigarettes past the desk,” I tell him, “so is there
anything else?”

He thinks for a moment. He tries out a few things in his mind, almost to the
tip of his tongue, I can see that he’s thinking of what he’d like, and I’m
fairly certain that people offering to bring him things is not something
he’s been accustomed to. It seems a fairly new concept to him.

“Chocolate? Any kind of food?”

Finally he settles on something. “M and M’s,” and he looks at me and then
away, as if embarrassed.

“Plain or peanut?”

“Plain.”

“I’ll do that,” I tell him. And then I ask him if I’m making him nervous.
It’s been 45 minutes, and all this time spent interacting with me must be
exhausting him.

He doesn’t answer but looks away, and starts to say something, then stops.

“It’s okay,” I tell him, touching his arm and laughing with him, “it’s okay.
Do you want me to come back in a couple of days?” He smiles, perhaps because
I’d come out and said what he’d wanted to say, that I was exhausting him
with my presence, no matter how nice I might be. And he has a ready answer
for my question, and he says, “Yes,” right away.

I shake his hand, and I thank him for talking to me, with the unspoken
emphasis being that I’m the one who needed to talk, and I let him know that
I appreciated his company. I tell him I’ll be back on Wednesday, the day
after tomorrow, with M&M’s and more stamps.

I drive home, thinking about how I can sneak in cigarettes, and sneak him
out to have one.



http://open.salon.com/blog/moniquec/2009/07/06/mr_m_and_his_mms


-- 
Monique Colver