Great Love

It was beautiful to be with Gary for the last hour of his life.

He had not been responsive this morning and didn’t seem to be suffering through the part of dying that we witnessed. It seems a little corny or cliché, but the room felt filled with love.  Not just a great love for Gary, though that was there too, but for all of us – it was one of the most hopeful moments that I’ve experienced. 

I felt so lucky to have spent some time with Gary last week on my shift – I had escorted him downstairs for a smoke along with my shift mate, and he remarked that is was so hard to keep track of all the different volunteers’ names at the Guest House. I joked with him that he really only needed to remember the one most important name, Tim (my name) and that he should call everyone by that name. That way he would know that he was going to make at least one person happy.

Thereafter, every time someone new came by his room, he grinned at me and said, “I guess that’s another Tim, right?”  He was really enjoying the opportunity to make all of us smile and laugh.