Volunteers Serve Patients in Active Transition
The prospect of grief and the idea of hospice are topics that many people face with apprehension – and yet, there are a special few who experience end-of-life care as a calling. Some of our hospice volunteers have such a love for this work that they visit patients who are in active transition, providing compassionate presence during this critical and sensitive time.
Joe Nagy has been volunteering with Hospice since 2021 and says that he does it “in order to be a blessing to others” and because he “feels compelled.” As a hospice trained doula, he’s always open to serving transitioning patients.
Joe Monello, whose three daughters had been watching him around the clock, was one patient Joe developed a special connection with. As he was nearing transition and the daughters became exhausted, Joe stayed with Mr. Monello from 8 pm to 8 am five nights in a row. Finally, on the last night when the daughters were away, Mr. Monello died. Like many volunteers who sit with patients in transition, Joe had been there to ensure he wasn’t alone.
“I also prayed and played worship music with the family,” Joe says. “They were grateful for that care and support.”
Dave Selby & Judy Williams, both Hospice music comfort volunteers, took turns at the home of patient Judy Johns in the time shortly before she died.
“Dave and I knew that music was a joy to her, especially Loretta Lynn and Patsy Kline. The family was so welcoming and appreciative every time we came. She had bedside music every day for the last week of her life.”
Julie Ferguson, a HosPet volunteer, works with her trained therapy dog Isabella (“Izzy,” a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel) to bring comfort to dying patients.
“It’s amazing how intuitive she is,” Julie says. “Her first patient visit was with a best friend’s mother, and she immediately backed into her arms when I put her on the bed. She just knew.”
Julie, who received her Thanatology certificate from Hood College, describes how she knows that we “labor out of” life in much the same way that we come into it, and how pets can settle the nervous system during the anxiety of this transition – for patients and families.
Izzy, as a companion, brings her own family joy, and Julie is consistently amazed at how gentle and responsive she can be to dying patients – often placing her paw gently across the stomach of a patient in transition.
All of these hospice volunteers have one message in common: just how much of an honor it is to be part of this “incredibly intimate moment,” as Dave Selby puts it, in someone’s life. As Joe Nagy says, he serves the dying because, for him, it’s a way to “love others” — one of the most powerful and meaningful ways we can be present for another person
