Descriptive Essay: Hospice And Palliative Care

Death. I’m surrounded by it, surrounded by life fleeing people’s lungs at the Hospice and Palliative Care in Columbia MO. For the patients in this center, their days have become numbered. I can hear the machines churning away, a machine that has become most of these patients single life source. A realization then quickly hits me, I’m breathing in the same air that others in this very building are using to take their last. Families rush in and out of the rooms, franticly getting in their last goodbyes while they still have the chance. Children don’t understand, looking distraught as they hang onto the coattails of their parents. One child, visibly crying as he pressed his face into his fathers business suit, didn’t understand what was happening as he exited into the warm spring afternoon. “Why wasn’t Grandpa
responding, he didn’t say a word to any of us.” And most people in this building aren’t saying any words. Words are hard to come by in here, especially when you see someone you love staring death right in the eyes. That’s what this place was though, a house for those waiting to die. I look up to see workers popping in and out of rooms, opening and closing the doors to each specific room.
The opening and closing of doors has almost become soothing to me, echoing off the walls in the hallway. It provides a little bit of sound, a little bit of life, to any otherwise lifeless building. The walls in the waiting area are about as pale as the faces of those surrounded by them. Some are waiting for family members, others are keeping themselves busy, and some just have to step out because they can’t bare the pain anymore. As I find myself blending in amongst the visitors, the smell of chlorine and cleaning supplies spreads through my nostrils. It has me thinking, how amazing is it that in a place filled with death, they can make it smell like the opposite, clean and pure. One man in a red collard shirt and khaki shorts is on the phone with what sounds like a relative, urging them to get here as quickly as possible in order to say their goodbyes. A female worker at the desk frantically direct visitor into the respective rooms of the ones they are visiting, trying her best to calmly dealing with the stressed and
distraught. Three other female workers are huddled together, taking a quick breather from what’s had to be a frantic day. I can’t even imagine what they go through, caring and looking after those who they know will most likely die in a short couple of weeks. One of the three female worker then says something the breaks my heart, a comment that no one should have to utter. “That poor man down the hall is about to die, and not one person has come to visit him.” One worker then spots me, and approaches me with a smile. She asks if I need help finding anyone, to which I was instantly caught off guard. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t get myself to talk. All I could muster up was a swift shake of the head. I don’t even have a loved on in here, but yet even I couldn’t muster up a single word. She just smiled and then walked off, going her separate way. As I sat there in silence, almost feeling awkward as if I was somewhere I didn’t belong, the sound of music then danced throughout the halls. It was a much-needed break to the silence, a classical music sound that brought out smiles to those in the waiting area. It was therapeutic, and it allowed my mind to wonder onto things other than death. How fitting that I come to figure out that it was ‘music therapy’, something they offer at this center. Conversation then started to pick up against those in the center, the first real line of life since I had been there. While people were by no means happy, they at least showed signs of being human and alive. As I pack up and get ready to leave, a mother and her two sons follow behind me stride for stride. The little boy, with his shaky voice, asks- “Mom, are we ever going to have to come back here again?” The Mother, clearly distraught with her voice all raspy, pulled herself together for a simple but stern reply. “No bud, never again.”