About a year ago, I started to think about what volunteering I might want to become involved with in the community. There are a lot of options in a small town with an interest group for everything. There is curling, hockey, community associations, reading, literacy, special needs, hospital auxiliary, card-playing groups, painting classes, the Arts Council, music festival.... well you get the picture! So when I started thinking about volunteering I looked at what I think my skills and gifts are. I see myself as caring, calm, supportive, warm and capable. (Also very humble :) obviously).
So when I saw the advertisement for Hospice Volunteer training, I was immediately drawn toward it. In my early years of nursing, I took some palliative care training and thought at one time that I might make this the focus of my career. Things didn't turn out that way, but palliative care, end of life care - hospice - has always remained on the periphery of my mind.
As the very first post-employment commitment, I signed up to take a 2 weekend hospice volunteer training in 100 Mile House. As it happened, this coincided with my birthday weekend for the last 2 days of training as well as falling right after the Senior Chorfest in Kelowna. It was a busy couple of weeks!
Mom still loves to sing (at 91) and I thought going to Kelowna for 2 days of singing would be a nice get-away for her. I talked my sister, Elaine, into coming along so she could drive Mom and we could have a bit of a reunion. We stayed in a great little Air BnB house only 5 minutes from the singing venue. I drove down Wednesday night, we sang all day Thursday and Friday, ending with an evening concert. By the time we got back to our BnB, had a visit and packed up. it was 11 pm. I got up on Saturday at 4:30 am to make the trek home in time for the Hospice training. All was well until Kamloops, then the rain began. By the time I was part way up Hwy 24 from Little Fort, the snow started. The road turned from slush to snow to pooling water and back to slush. I was forced to slow way down and tried to remember not to brake or steer suddenly. I prayed no deer would decide to cross as I approached. As it happened, I got to the training only 1/2 hour late.
On day two of the training, Sunday, Palm Sunday and my birthday, we finished up a very intense and emotional course related to all things death and dying. The group of 8 new volunteers grew quite close through the experience. I was pretty exhausted when I finally arrived home at suppertime. So it was nice that there was no big surprise party or anything unusual. Instead, we had left over lasagne and then a band practice with our guitar player, Ab. (Our fiddler was out of town). I had lots of lovely and thoughtful phone calls from family.
I certainly didn't dive into a depression, but the milestone did not go unnoticed, especially since I was deep into thinking about death and dying.
Certainly made me want to be sure to live fully and intentionally, and not to let these next years just "happen" without me noticing. I'll let you know what that means when I figure it out!
Cathryn
