But many people had no one.
After she passed, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.
So every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, I visited hospice patients who needed companionship or practical help. Sometimes I cleaned kitchens. Sometimes I picked up groceries. Sometimes I simply listened.
A few months before my life changed, the program coordinator called me.
“We have a new patient,” she said. “His name is Carl Reed. He has stage four pancreatic cancer and lives alone. He specifically requested someone comfortable with quiet visits.”
I didn’t think anything of the word “specifically.”
I wrote down the address and drove there the following Tuesday.
Carl lived in a modest blue house at the end of a tree-lined street outside Cincinnati. The yard was neat but plain. There were no children’s bicycles, no flower beds, and no car in the driveway.
