by Katie Zakrzewski
“To your grave there’s no use taking any gold,
You cannot use it when it’s time for hands to fold,
When you leave this earth for a better home someday,
The only thing you’ll take is what you gave away.”
– Grandpa Jones
While most girls my age were content to go to the mall and get mani pedis, at 17 years old, I wanted to enter the religious life. I went to an all girls Catholic high school in the South, and I come from a very devout Polish Catholic family.
And while the joke is that every good Catholic kid wants to enter the religious life at some point, I think my vocational yearning was the misplaced desire to generally do good in my community. Albeit, my faith encouraged me to do things that other teenagers might have been too uncertain to do. But one of those spiritual quests ended up providing the basis for the rest of my adult life, with or without a nun’s habit.
As part of our graduation requirements, we had to participate in service learning my junior year of high school during the time slot allotted for our theology class. We were given a list of places in our city to volunteer and told to pick one that we’d be interested in. Of course, dozens of girls selected the animal shelter, the park, the library, and daycares. My eyes fell to the bottom of the list, a location with 0 volunteers — our local Hospice.
Even at 17, I wasn’t deterred by death. I’d already experienced several significant losses in my life — cherished pets, my grandparents who helped raise me, and my youngest brother, as well as countless friends. I figured that if anyone in my class was equipped with the skills to serve the dying, it was probably me.
Unsurprisingly, during the next class period the teacher confirmed that I would be serving at Hospice three times a week for the semester. But to my surprise, one of my other classmates and friends had signed up with me, a girl named Katy. We both became known as “The Katies of Death” in our theology class.
When Katy and I showed up to Hospice, we filled out the usual paperwork and had our volunteer badges made before being taken to the front desk, where we would receive the patient roster from the old, grandmotherly nurse. Each sheet had a patient’s name, gender, age, any conditions, how long they had been there, any notes or requests from the patient, and whether or not any family was present. Some patients had huge families with them at all hours, but that’s not who I was there to serve. Katy and I often spent our first few weeks going to each room together as a pair, getting to know patients.
Not everyone goes to Hospice to die — some patients had been in Hospice for months. Some patients would go in and out of Hospice for years. Some were there on the day we visited, and they were gone the next.
Some of the patients that we met were very colorful and knew that they weren’t going to die just yet. One was Mr. K, a very crotchety veteran that the nurses generally dreaded tending to. They warned us before we went in that he was anything but a ray of sunshine. I didn’t feel too deterred — I had helped care for my senile grandmother in her final years, and figured it would be nothing new.
Mr. K was gruff and pessimistic. He spent most of his time complaining about everything that crossed his mind. He complained about the weather. He complained about his ex wife, whom he hadn’t seen in decades. He complained about sports, politics, religion, and everything in between. He seemed delighted, though, that I didn’t try to hinder his complaining, and was pleased that I attentively listened to his advice about not marrying someone from a different political or religious background. I knew a lot of this was the musings of a frustrated old man, but I realized that he hadn’t had someone who would just listen to him. He soon revealed to us that he used to play basketball and rugby in the Midwest (he and Katy had the same favorite basketball team), that he didn’t like the snow, and that he grew up doing a lot of farming.
The nurses were puzzled at Mr. K’s changing demeanor. We were told that he asked about us on the days we didn’t come by, and that he had become nicer to the nurses.
Then, one day, we opened the door to his room — we were on such good terms that we didn’t even bother knocking — and it was empty. The bed was made with fresh linens, the open blinds letting the afternoon light pour in, the room overlooking the busy street below.
“Where’s Mr. K?”
A gruff nurse at the desk spoke, offering neither clue nor answer.
“He’s gone.”
Katy and I exchanged looks. I scoured the obituaries but couldn’t find his name. I asked a friendlier nurse about it a few days later. He laughed.
“Oh, he’s not gone gone,” he said. “He comes and goes. I don’t know where he goes, but he’ll come back at some point. But this time was different. He spoke very highly of you two. He’s usually eager to get out of here, but he almost seemed hesitant to leave.”
***
One of my more shocking moments at Hospice was a week-long affair that started on a Monday. Katy and I visited with a new patient, Robbie. We were initially puzzled after talking with Robbie for a little while. He walked from one side of the room to the other, put some folded laundry away, made himself a cup of coffee, put his yoga mat up, and grabbed a book. His brother offered to help Robbie around, but Robbie waved him off.
Katy finally wondered aloud. “Are you sure you’re in the right place?”
Robbie chuckled. “They said I’ll be dead in a week.”
Katy and I audibly gasped in disbelief. Robbie had neither the countenance nor the demeanor of a man on his deathbed. He seemed vibrant and spry. “I’ve got stage four liver cancer.”
Still in disbelief, we both managed our apologies and well wishes, talking with him about his background and hometown. We returned on Wednesday and found him in his bed. He was less talkative, and had a general tiredness about him. We dimmed his shades and spoke softly to him. We didn’t keep him for long. On Friday, he was largely unresponsive in his bed. As we walked by his room, his brother and nurse were gently turning him onto his side, his breathing shallow. We gently poked into the doorway and gave his brother a sad little wave, taking a final look at Robbie.
On Monday, his room was empty, the bed made with fresh linens, the open blinds letting the afternoon light pour in, the room overlooking the busy street below.
***
As Katy and I became more confident in our volunteering abilities, we would split up to visit different patients. One patient in particular seemed immensely troubled, based on her patient entry. Her notes column read something to the effect of “!!!ALWAYS RESUSCITATE!!!”
We were hesitant to visit this patient, afraid that we might do more harm than good. I asked the grandmotherly head nurse about the patient. She sighed.
“Some folks come here, and they’re in complete denial. They have to fast-track working through all of the emotional baggage that usually takes years to process. They’ve resuscitated her several times already, and it did more harm than good.”
The nurse told me that this patient had confided in them that she was very wealthy, and that her wealth had bred greed amongst family members. Her children and grandchildren only called to ask about their inheritance, instead of the woman’s condition.
I was pulled out of my melancholic thoughts by the elderly nurse’s voice: “She’d probably like your company.”
I must have been a strange sight to behold to the woman in denial. Even though my parochial school already had modest uniforms, I found a way to make it even more modest, with dark leggings, and a large black headband that covered most of my hair. I entered the dimmed room uncertainly, and suddenly felt fear. It was a difficult sight to take in — the woman was in her late 80s with late stage mouth and throat cancer. Most of her face from the nose down was covered and bandaged. It was hard to tell where the body stopped and where machines and tubing began. Her sunken eyes regarded me miserably, and she watched me with the fear of a wounded animal; it was hard to tell who was more uncertain about the other. I gently sat beside her bed, gazing at the elaborate rings that adorned her frail fingers. Struggling to find something to say, I spoke softly.
“I like your rings. They’re really pretty.”
She managed a faint, raspy, “Thank you.”
I whispered. “Are you scared?”
She nodded.
I managed back. “You’re not alone.”
While I originally intended for those words to imply that I was physically there in the present with her, I think that in that moment, they ended up meaning a lot more. I was scared too. I was scared of a lot of things. My present and high school were scary. My future and trying to figure out where I was going to go to college (and how I was supposed to pay for it) was scary. My past and seeing the faces of my dying loved ones transposed onto the faces of Hospice patients was scary.
I didn’t realize that tears were dripping down my face until the frail, boney hand appeared in my line of sight, offering a crumpled tissue. I graciously took it, quietly apologizing to her. We sat in silence together for some time, feeling one another’s contemplative presence. In saying very little, all that was needed had been said. With a trembling hand, she took the pen from my volunteer clipboard. Next to her name on the patient sheet, she wrote in shaky letters: “DNR.”
Do not resuscitate.
The next day when we returned, her room was empty, the bed made with fresh linens, the open blinds letting the afternoon light pour in, the room overlooking the busy street below.
***
On one of my last days visiting Hospice, as the promise of summer encroached on the academic demands of the late spring, Katy and I were puzzled to find a large gathering outside of one of the patient rooms. A large group of disheveled individuals were gathered in a room and nearly blocking the hallway.
As we drew closer, we found nearly two dozen homeless people crowding around an elderly man as he laid in his hospital bed. His breathing was raspy, shallow, and watery, making an almost knocking sound. It was the death rattle common amongst individuals hours away from the end. The nurse in the hallway must have seen our furrowed brows at the sight of the crowd and spoke.
“He’s a local homeless man. He’s helped a lot of the other homeless folks in the neighborhood. They’ve been outside the hospital everyday asking if we knew where he was,” the nurse said. “When I told them he was here, they were heartbroken. He’s had dozens of visitors ever since.”
Katy and I watched quietly from the hallway, as members of the homeless community fluffed the man’s pillow, brought him extra blankets, held his hands and cleaned his face. Some of them sang hymns softly.
We exchanged a look, and I realized Katy and I both had the same observation. Sometimes, the people who have everything in life have nothing in death. But sometimes the people who have nothing in life have everything that they could ever want in their final hours.
***
So many patients and families shared with me their deepest desires, their darkest fears, and their sorest regrets that semester. Even today, I’ve learned to take vacations while I still can. I’ve traveled to places I never would have imagined, and I’m about to complete my master’s degree in public service. I never go to bed angry. I always say, “I love you,” to family and friends before hanging up the phone, just in case it’s the last time we talk.
Ultimately, I didn’t enter the religious life. I’m still a devout Catholic, but I’m engaged to a devout Protestant. Politically, we don’t always see eye to eye (sorry Mr. K). But we cherish our time together, and I cherish my time with those around me. I choose my words wisely with both friend and foe. There have been times that I’ve turned in a less than perfect assignment in order to spend more time with my family instead, because I saw first hand that when people are lying in their deathbeds, they remember their parents and siblings and spouses and children and pets — not their high school geometry assignment or that one bad day at work 30 years ago. I eat my cake today, because I might not be there to eat it tomorrow.
I’ve learned that it is so important not to get lost in the weeds of everyday life. If today sucked, oh well. There’s always tomorrow. And at least on our bad days, we still have people around us who love us, help us, and want the best for us. I’ve learned to savor each moment, and I’ve learned to be thankful, because things can very quickly change.
But most importantly, I’ve learned that when I leave this earth for a better home someday, the only thing I’ll take is what I gave away.
Katie Zakrzewski is a local journalist, devout Polish Catholic, environmental activist, and aspiring public servant from North Little Rock, Arkansas. Send her mail.