Taxi cabs were still an important part of the cityscape in 1972. In an effort to pay my way through college, I drove a Yellow Cab in Dayton, Ohio during part of that year. My cab was #30 and that has been my lucky number ever since. Those seven months behind the wheel of a taxi exposed me to every facet of life. And as I look back on my cab driving career, one fare that took 20 minutes from start to finish eventually brought me to my last career position; volunteering and working for a local hospice.
On a very drizzly, dreary, dark evening in late February, I was dispatched to the Emergency Room of Miami Valley Hospital to pick up a fare. Since the location of a hospital’s Emergency Room is familiar to everyone that was where most taxi related hospital pick-ups were. Emergency Room fares were always interesting because I never knew if the fare would be a banged up Emergency Room patient being released, a staff member needing a ride home, or any of a myriad of reasons someone needed a ride.
As I pulled up, a small, frail woman probably in her 80’s approached my cab. I got out and assisted her into the back seat. Her address was on Xenia Avenue, just east of downtown. Since we were heading to an older part of the city I asked her about the neighborhood, how long she lived there, etc. I always enjoy hearing about the “good ‘ol days”. She talked for a bit about the neighborhood then gently turned the conversation towards me. I told her that I was recently married and my wife had been a nurse for about a year.
“Oh, you two have your whole life in front of you.” She sounded so happy and excited.
Then, as she gazed out the side window of the cab, said that she had been at the hospital visiting her husband of 63 years and that he was very sick. I wasn’t sure how to respond. But after a few seconds of quiet, she continued talking, almost wistfully, about her husband and their life together. Being newly married, I found it fascinating.
“His nurse said that he wasn’t doing very well and that he needed his rest. Someone came in and said that visiting hours are over and that maybe I should go home and get some rest, too.” Talking softly, as if to herself, she said, “He is going to die tonight, I know it. They wouldn’t let me stay.” I thought to myself, “After an entire life together, on a day that was just as important as their wedding day, why did the hospital staff send her home? Why separate them when their need for each other is so intense?”
I pulled up to their house, the house they moved into as young-marrieds over 55 years ago. Low clouds and drizzle muffled the sounds of the city and dimly reflected the lights of downtown onto the small front yard. Hurrying around the cab, I opened the taxi’s rear door for her and she slowly got out. I instinctively put my arm around her and walked her up to the front porch.
She gave me the house key and I let her in. She wished me and my wife a happy life together and as I turned to leave she embraced me, pressed her head in my shoulder and started to sob. “He was such a good man. I’m going to miss him…I’m so scared.” Caught off guard, I held her for a bit. I did not want to leave her.
Again she said, “He’s going to die tonight. I know it. Why wouldn’t they let me stay?” Again, I had no reply. She turned, went in, and I stood there as the door closed. After a moment I turned and took a few steps toward my cab. I stopped. My bottom lip started to quiver and my eyes moistened. Gazing back at the dark silhouette of her house I realized her life was ending, mine was beginning. It was as if she passed the baton of life to me.
A lot has changed in the medical field since 1972, but the change in the medical field has not just been in technology or pharmaceuticals. There has also been a change, albeit a small one, in the thinking on the part that the family plays when dealing with a serious illness. Through the hospice philosophy, we are turning back from medical invincibility to reality.
When I think of that woman I picked up from Miami Valley Hospital, I think how different it would have been had hospice come to America by that time. Hospice care has brought some common sense into what modern thinking had turned into a clinical event: the end of life. Common sense, or maybe I should say “hospice sense”, tells me that the woman’s husband did not need rest. Rest for what? He needed his wife and she needed him. She needed to be with him and to comfort him. Couldn’t the hospital staff have bent the rules just a little for her? All these years later, I still think of her. Little did I know that that short fare would eventually bring me to hospice.
Twenty five years later, in January of 1997, I saw an ad in the paper about hospice seeking volunteers and instinctively knew that I had to do it. I didn’t know much about hospice then but I did know that hospice care focused on people. That it encouraged family and friends to gather when someone was approaching the end of their life, and not send family home to “get some rest”. In fact, many times at the hospice where I now volunteer, our staff has helped a spouse get in bed with their dying partner so that the one could comfort the other.
When I got back in my taxi that night the dispatcher was calling my number. He had a pick up for me at the Galaxy Club on Linden Avenue….It was a “go-go joint”…. And life went on.
