Hospitality

Paths I travel in my work lead me to people's homes. More often than not, I meet people where they live. There is nothing like going to someone's home to experience how well they practice the virtue of hospitality.

Here are samplings of my experiences lately:

I went to this man's home to deliver some medications for his wife who was dying there. He had indicated to our nurse that he had no religion, and I had some sense going there that I probably would not have been welcome if I were just stopping by, but delivering the meds gave me a practical purpose to be there. He greeted me at the door with his hands still wet from washing dishes, and I shook the wet hand he offered. He led me in to meet his wife, but she was non-responsive. I tried to engage him in conversation about what this was and had been like for him, caring for his wife of many years as she died. His answers were cordial ans short. He shrugged off my empathy. Soon he led me from the room, back to the front door. After another exchange of cordialities, I was gone. I felt about the whole experience that it was as if I were walking around the outside of the house, looking in the windows. I never experienced "getting in," let alone being made welcome.

The next day I went to see a woman who is Pacific Islander. "Mahalo" said her welcome mat, and indeed Mahalo was her whole demeanor. She invited me in; a grand-daughter brought a glass of soda; she insisted I move my chair closer to hers; she spoke easily about her life, her illness, her expectations and her hopes; and she even asked me to stay and listen to a cd of a gospel song, recorded in her native language! Even as I was leaving, she tried to teach me how to say "hello" and "good-bye" in her tongue. I felt not only welcomed, but made to feel at home-- in the best sense!

Later I went to see a woman who was unresponsive and alone at the time in a skilled facility (a nursing home). I greeted her, thanked her for letting me be with her for a little while, and I pulled up a chair, presuming upon her hospitality and making myself comfortable. I spoke with her gently when I did, and otherwise spent silent minutes with her, listening to her breathing, listening for her thoughts. I tried to be a good guest, and not disturb her too much. I let her know that I realized that this was her space I knew I was intruding upon. When I offered a prayer at the end of my visit, I begged her pardon if this were not something she would have wanted for herself. I thanked her for letting me spend some time with her.

On another occasion, I went to the home of an Asian man, whose wife greeted me at the door. She welcomed me, led me to his bedside and pointed me to a chair she had set up there. The distance among us was respectful, formal. We talked in that same way-- distanced, respectfully, and formally-- about their experiences, her fatigue with providing care, his with simply making the effort to live. We acknowledged among us some things about their lives and their life together, and we recognized that perhaps very soon there would be coming a change, and their paths would part. My offer to pray was accepted, all in the same tone, and the blessing and encouragement to each in their prospective parting, all just the same-- heartfelt, and formal. As I was leaving, I did something I had not done before. I bent over the man, and gave him a special blessing. We looked into each other's eyes, and the formality evaporated just a little. He teared, and nodded. I nodded back, as if we'd reached a silent agreement. On the way out, I was given a small gift by his wife. She expressed her gratitude for my visit. He died a couple of days later, finally, after a decline of many months.

Hospitality is a hospice virtue, something we notice, something we try to provide and encourage. But we also know something about the hospitality we encounter in our patients and their caregivers. We know their hospitality has already been presumed upon. Long before we get there, they have already been forced to entertain an Uninvited Guest: Death. Often, how they have been doing in being hospitable to Death is reflected in how they behave toward us. Sometimes they realize that we come on Death's coattails, through the door left ajar when Death arrived. I wonder sometimes why our patients and families are ever happy to see us! Yet the variety of human experience is reflected in the variety of hospitalities shown to us in hospice. And I think, if patients and their families can find ways to be welcoming of us, then perhaps they can adjust to the prior intrusion Death has brought to their lives-- and in the end, be better for it.