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<\/a><\/p>\nAs a hospice volunteer, I provide respite care for family members when they need a break.<\/p>\n
I was supporting a woman experiencing advanced dementia without verbal communication.<\/p>\n
Because hearing is one of the last senses to go, on my first visit I experimented with reading human interest stories from the news. Next, I tried playing the song, You Are My Sunshine<\/em>, and her hand started to keep time.<\/p>\n Her husband was overcome with emotion and grateful for any response. It had been a very long time since he had seen any response from his wife. Next, I played Christmas music from the 60\u2019s & 70\u2019s (Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin) and brought a poinsettia so she would know it was Christmas time. I said to her husband, \u201cI don\u2019t know if Linda will make it to Christmas, but I do know that Christmas will make it to Linda.\u201d<\/p>\n She passed away 2 days later, surrounded by her loving family.<\/p>\n On another occasion, I made a visit to a woman who was bedridden and apparently unconscious.<\/p>\n While sitting with this woman, I noticed she had the most misshapen feet I have yet to come across. The balls of her feet jutted out from calluses. Her toes were squashed together from years of wearing ill fitting shoes. This was a hard-working woman who spent hours on her feet for years on end. Her hands were rough too, so I decided to lavish her with lotion, like an anointing.<\/p>\n I warmed some lotion in my hands asking for Light and started on her feet. I was so focused on my labors that when I looked up, I saw that her eyes were open and staring with awe and wonder. I finished with her hands and moved a step away.\u00a0But her gaze did not leave my spot. She was not looking at me but something else that I could not perceive.\u00a0She raised her right arm to reach out to her vision. I like to think that she was seeing a Light Being.<\/p>\n Her daughter returned at about that time. When she entered the room, she could tell that something was happening with her mom. She saw the lotion and deduced that I had used the lotion on her mom\u2019s hands & feet.<\/p>\n It was then that her mom closed her eyes in a restful repose. She died a few hours later with her family at her bedside.<\/p>\n It is my blessing to serve in this way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a hospice volunteer, I provide respite care for family members when they need a break. I was supporting a woman experiencing advanced dementia without verbal communication. Because hearing is one of the last senses to go, on my first visit I experimented with reading human interest stories from the news. Next, I tried playing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":108896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[266,6776],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-living-in-service"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}