NHPCO NewsLine Winter 2017 - 44

Short Takes
NHPCO's

Category: Blog

20
17

Impactful Relationships:
The Interactions of Hospice and Palliative Care

Creative Arts Contest
As I sat weeping next to Sam's just deceased body, what I missed most was the playful glint behind those beautiful blue
Irish eyes. They truly were the window to his kind and gentle soul.
He had been a strapping young lad from Wisconsin camping in the Grand Tetons when Nancy and her family arrived for
their vacation. Sam and Nancy hit it off straight away and, in fact, Sam followed Nancy's family back to Utah. He simply
showed up on her doorstep and never left. That was sixty-seven years ago and part of the story Alzheimer's had erased
from Sam's memory bank.

Also gone was a lifetime of working for the forestry service, raising two loving sons, untold hours fishing, and traveling
the country with Nancy in their little camper. Bedbound for the last several years of his life, as his body ever-so-slowly
diminished so did a lifetime of memories and even an awareness of who he was.

PLACE

What did not diminish, however, was that playful kindness in those deep blue eyes. Always present to the moment, Sam
loved to laugh and tease. After months of visits and simple conversations Sam could vaguely remember my face but not
who I was or why I was there. Most of the time I simply told Sam his own life story. It all started naturally enough. On one
of my first visits, those blue eyes looked like a deer's caught by headlights as Sam told me he couldn't remember who he
was or why he was still here. So I just started to remind him. As I told him his own life story, those blue eyes began to
water and relax. When I told him he was a good man and had lived a good life he smiled. That mischievous Irish grin
captured my heart.
Over the months Sam taught me so much about living in the present moment. That's all we really have anyway. With
him, the present was all there was. He taught me how lost we can get when we forget who we are, when we forget our
story-and how important it is to have good friends and loved ones to remind us. He also taught me about emotional
investing. Because of the love he had deposited into others throughout his ninety-plus years of living, he earned great
dividends and was able to benefit from those investments when it was needed. His memory bank may have been
depleted, but his emotional and relational accounts continued to thrive.

First Place

"Old Blue
Eyes"
Submitted by
Fred Grewe
Providence Home
Health and Hospice,
Medford, OR

The night before he died, Nancy and their daughter-in-law Joyce were up caring for him and got no sleep. The next
afternoon, Nancy had just lain down to get some rest in the next room. She told me she really didn't sleep-she called it
being in a "twilight zone"-when she saw a golden luminous ball suddenly appear on the door of the bedroom. She
was thinking, "Is that Sam's spirit?" when Lynn came in to tell her that Sam had just passed away.
Was that luminous golden ball that manifested on Nancy's bedroom door Sam's spirit as she believes? Was it the divine
spark that animated the playful glint behind his beautiful blue eyes? I don't know. But what I do know is that my own life
has been incredibly enriched by simply spending hours with a good man, basking in the glow of his love with and for
Nancy, and having the distinct privilege of re-telling this kind man with the beautiful blue eyes the story he actually lived.

Second Place

"I Am Definitely the
Fortunate One"
by Jan Phillips, Hospice of Dubuque,
Dubuque, IA

NHPCO NewsLine | Winter 2017

Honorable Mention

"Tulips of Love"
by Anne Chida, Unity Hospice of Greater
St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE
2017 CREATIVE ARTS CONTEST PDF.

http://www.caringinfo.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3406 https://www.nhpco.org/sites/default/files/public/communications/Creative_Arts_Contest_2017.pdf

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NHPCO NewsLine Winter 2017