| Our Stories: Bill's Friends |
At the age of 83, Bill closed the circle this July, passing away peacefully at The Legacy House, where, during his many years as a volunteer, he had greeted guests at the reception desk, and spent countless hours at the bedside, visiting patients in their final days. As he realized the end of his own life was near, Bill chronicled his time with 26 of those patients in short stories. With warmth, humor and a touching insight into the human psyche, Bill’s memoirs of those fellow travelers are a reminder of the uniqueness of each human life. He connected deeply with each patient, making a difference in their lives. He would always be the first to say he received much more than he gave. A tireless Hospice of Marion County volunteer for 14 years, his many contributions included public speaking, fundraising and facilitating at the children’s grief camp, an unfunded program. One of his proudest moments came when a little girl took his hand and said simply, “Grandpa.” A moment later, her sister took his other hand. Bill realized they were grieving the loss of their own grandfather and found comfort relating to him. Helping children express grief in a healthy way alleviates an emotional burden they could carry for a lifetime. It is in that spirit that we offer this tribute to Bill Mayer to inspire others. Bill was a true representative of hospice, who understood what it means to give unselfishly to others in need. We rely on the support of caring individuals like Bill to help fulfill our mission of caring for families during life’s most difficult transition, regardless of ability to pay. Read his collection of stories, below.
BECOMING A “PATIENT SUPPORT PERSON” My wife told me, “If you volunteer at Hospice, you don’t have to be a patient support person, you know.” “What’s a patient support person?” “It means working with the terminally ill.” “Well, I certainly don’t want to do that. I’ll do fund raisers, trade shows, that kind of stuff. I’ll leave the terminally ill folks to someone else.” And so I began my career at Hospice, appearing at all sorts of events such as Hoofin’ It for Hospice, 2K walks, motorcycle rallys, outreach events, Butterfly Festival, etc., and finally directing traffic at the opening of the new Hospice facility Legacy House. Legacy House is for hospice patients who can no longer be taken care of in their own homes. I was quite impressed with the beautiful, comfortable place and when I heard they were looking for volunteers to serve as greeters, I said “Sure, why not.” Greeters welcome family and friends who come to visit patients. Greeters sit up front; patients are in the back, so I was still insulated from the terminally ill. Except for Nancy. She was a patient and I first met her when she weakly walked up to the reception area and told me she was the poster girl for Hospice. I asked her how that happened. She told me that when she got there, she told the Hospice people that there were three things she wanted to do before she died. First, she wanted to swim with the dolphins. They set that up. She swam with the dolphins and they took pictures that later ran in the newspaper. Then Nancy told the Hospice people she had never ridden a horse. So they set that up. She rode a horse and they took pictures. The newspaper ran them again. “What about the third thing,” I asked. “That’s kind of naughty and I don’t think I know you well enough to tell you,” said Nancy. How could you not fall in love with a lady like that? Nancy had ALS, the awful Lou Gehrig’s disease, and it was slowly taking all the livelihood out of her but she wasn’t going to give in slowly. She would walk out to the reception area every day and kind of hold court. She would sit on one of the large stuffed chairs and greet visitors and make sure everyone was taken care of.
CAMP MARIPOSA AND FLUTTERBY DAYS Camp Mariposa is a Hospice bereavement activity for children who have lost a loved one – father, mother, grandparent or friend. “Camp” is held in the Education Center and includes the following activities:
In between these activities, the kids meet with bereavement counselors in three short meetings, where they are encouraged to discuss with their peers their feelings of sadness, anger, confusion and other emotions involved with grief and the loss of a loved one. These sessions are important because they enable the kids to realize they are not alone in experiencing these emotions and the importance of allowing the emotion to be recognized. The children are encouraged to write a letter to their lost loved one and toward the end of the day each child puts his decorated wood butterfly on a huge magnetic butterfly and then reads his/her letter in front of the audience of parents and peers. This activity, which can bring tears to the toughest heart, has particular significance on this last Saturday when one girl read her letter to her departed father and looked up and suddenly exclaimed, “Look, my mother is crying.” It became clear that her mother had completely shut down upon her husband’s death, in effect denying that he was gone. Unfortunately, the child gets the message that she doesn’t care, that his death is unimportant, and probably that she didn’t really love him at all. When she saw her mother crying, all these negative messages disappeared and hopefully she and her mother could grieve in a healthier way. They both walked away smiling. Camp Mariposa (Spanish for butterfly) comes to an end when the children are presented with a live butterfly which they all release at the same time. When those beautiful creatures soar away, it is uplifting in a way almost impossible to describe.
As a fund raiser, Hospice conducts Flutterbye Days, where school children are invited to learn about butterflies and participate hands-on with them. This is accomplished with a large tent filled with butterflies. The kids enter and can hold the insects in their hands. That’s where I come in. I greet the kids and tell them the following: “You have learned that butterflies taste with their feet. They like cantaloupe like this (hold up small piece of cantaloupe), so if you hold this under their noses, the butterfly will hop on and you will be holding one in your hand.” I continue… There are three things you must remember about the cantaloupes:
Then I give each kid a piece and they have a ball getting the butterflies to sit on their hands, shoulders, backs, heads, etc. The other part of Flutterbye Days is a lecture on how the butterfly pupae develop. At the end, in a follow-up question, they ask the kids what they learned. Several of them replied:
I guess I made some impression with my little lecture. Karen, who runs Flutterbye Days and the bereavement camp for kids that it benefits, maintains I am a natural for this activity because I symbolize “Grandpa” to the kids. She and I were watching the kids play with the butterflies in the tent, when a tiny, beautiful little girl toddled back out through the front door, waited there for a moment, looked up at me, smiled and said “Grandpa.” Karen had hysterics.
One of my tasks at Legacy House is to visit with patients, to talk with them and hopefully make their day a little more pleasant. In some cases, the patients have little or no family visits, others simply enjoy the company. Recently, I visited with a lady who seemed very withdrawn. It was difficult to generate any kind of a conversation. She finally asked if I worked for Hospice and I replied that I was a volunteer for nearly 10 years. I enumerated all the different things I had done – the Christmas tree, the Steel Horse Stampede, the 2K walk, etc., but then I said my favorite work was always with Camp Mariposa, the bereavement camp for children. She perked up a bit, so I told her about clowns painting the kid’s faces, kids painting wooden butterflies and memory boxes, and the dog demonstration – on and on and with each one she seemed to become more enthralled. When I told her of the children’s letters to their lost loved ones, she became even more animated. And when I told her about Paula reading her poem and then the kids releasing their butterflies and watch them rise into the sky, she broke into a big smile. She then surprised me by slowly repeating Thank You. We both had tears in our eyes. I sure stumbled on the right conversation subject for that sweet lady. THE PATIENTS MILT I hadn’t seen him since then until I received a call from the Hospice Volunteer Office asking if I could take on a new assignment in Dunnellon. It seemed that the patient’s wife had called and asked if we could substitute a male volunteer for the lady who was presently visiting. It seemed the lady talked all the time and Milt felt obligated to stay awake and keep her company. Plus, it was thought that he would feel more comfortable with a male volunteer. It was at this point, I found out that the patient was my old golf buddy, Milt, and agreed to visit him as soon as possible. Milt was dying of cancer and slight dementia but was quite alert and fit when I visited him. He wasn’t quite sure if he remembered me but did dredge up the names of several of our comrades in arms, and seemed genuinely pleased for the company. We sat in his living room with his charming wife of more than half a century and the conversation rolled on for more than an hour covering a multitude of topics with never an embarrassing lull in the conversation. I have to admit I was on that day – but Milt and his wife made it remarkably easy to keep the conversation flowing. Milt’s wife, Martha, walked me to the door, thanked me and asked if I could replace the nice lady. I said we could probably arrange something but that I had talked an awful lot myself during our visit.; She replied, “Yes, but you were interesting.” Talk about a nice report. Arrangements were made and I called Martha to say I would be visiting Milt each week. It turned out that my wife, Beverly, knew Martha from church and adored her, so she called and they discussed their going out for lunch while I sat with Milt. She said we would have to postpone it for awhile, as family members were coming from out of town for the next week to see her and Milt. It was only a week later that the Volunteer Coordinator called me and told me Milt had passed away. We attended a memorial service for Milt at the church, and afterwards at the reception I told this gallant lady how lucky I was to have had that last visit. She hugged me and said “I’m so glad too, because he just loved your visit and it made him so happy.” Can’t beat that for making a guy feel rewarded.
IRENE Our first conversation was interrupted by the appearance of her daughter. She introduced me to her as “my friend Bill.” Later on, she told everyone we were going steady. She was a delight to talk to and she remained chipper and alert week after week. Her only problem was she was determined to get up from the chair and walk. The nurses told her not to get up but she was determined to get up and, consequently would fall down. The problem was solved by strapping her into her chair or bed and then she would remember to stay put. I came to believe that as a former nurse herself, she felt she knew what to do and did as she pleased (nurses and doctors are notoriously lousy patients). I came to look forward to seeing her every week and unlike most patients, she didn’t seem to be getting any worse. (A typical stay at Legacy House is usually a few days -- maybe a couple of weeks). I was quite surprised on my next visit to find Irene in a very despondent state. I asked her what was the matter and expected her to say she was feeling worse and worse. However, she instead said, “They tell me I am not sick enough to stay here any more.” It seems the doctors had decided her heart condition was not terminal and had recommended she be transferred to an assisted living facility nearby. I told her that was very good news, but she indicated she supposed it was but she didn’t want to leave Hospice House and go to an assisted living place. As a nurse, I guess she had developed in aversion to assisted living houses. I had visited the facility in question and assured her it was really very nice, which it is, and told her I would come visit her there. She moved out about a week later and I have visited her several times to make sure she has become acclimated to her new home. The last time I saw her Irene was sitting in her room with a long string running from her chair to the signal across the room. She swung it lightly back and forth and asked if I wanted to skip rope. I figured she was going to do fine.
JIM He always asks what I did all week.; I detail my week, which includes my playing golf twice. This sparks the following conversation: “I tried golf but wasn’t very good at it. My friend was very good at it. Named Jerry Lapham. Do you know Jerry? Jerry’s father owned a golf course, so he learned early and was very good. I tried to play but wasn’t very good. I liked baseball…both games – hard ball and soft ball but wasn’t very good at golf. Had a friend named Jerry Lapham, he was a good golfer. You know Jerry?” And on again, over and over. I occasionally would change the subject and we’d discuss other matters until we got on the subject of sports and oops, he’d tell me about how he wasn’t very good at golf, but he had a friend, etc. So everything was going along these lines when Helen, his wife, came in and asked if I knew how to play checkers. I mentioned that I hadn’t played for about 70 years but I thought I could remember. So the checker board was set up and the match commenced. Jim immediately comes alive. “Checkers – a friendly game of checkers – no guns or pistols?” A half-dozen moves were made, kings were crowned, when all of a sudden, crack, crack, crack – and I was in dire trouble. He never quit and I was soon wiped out. Another game and he did the same thing – efficient and ruthless. Probably most unsettling would be when I would make a move and he would say, “You don’t want to do that,” knowing I was putting myself in near disaster. I agreed to play with him again next week and told him I’d whip his behind. It pleases me to know that although Jim has lost a lot of cognitive ability, he has retained his ability to whip any bounder who comes down the turnpike looking for a challenge. Over the years Jim and I played maybe a hundred games. Final record: Jim 95 |
From his days as a ‘60s-era “ad man”