The new volunteers coming into Mother Teresa’s free hospice always bring a fresh, bright energy with them but still, the atmosphere can become very heavy.
One of our roles is caring for hospice patients and one of our patients passed away this weekend. The hospice is split into a male and female ward but each of these wards are set up in open spaces, there are no separate rooms for the patients. When someone passes, everyone knows and it seeps into the entire environment.
I’d spent this past week caring for the woman that passed. A week isn’t very long but you still get attached to these women very quickly.
Working everyday at Mother Teresa’s hospice you become familiar with each of the women. You become familiar with what makes each of them unique. You can see how hard their lives have been in their weathered faces, their worn hands, their tired bodies.
But these women are gorgeous. I genuinely believe it’s our souls that make people beautiful. It’s our souls that make our eyes smile, make our hands gentler, our smiles kinder.
I wish everyone could see these women the way I do. After what they’ve endured, they’re still able to smile. This makes them absolutely stunning.
The woman that passed, her name was Anila. She didn’t speak much English and I don’t speak much Bengali but I still knew her and could see the toll this life has had on her. From what I could understand and from speaking with the nuns, she was forced to work as a sex worker after her husband left her. She was uneducated and had no other way to provide for her son. Her son passed away when he was still very young and she was left with no one. She was on the streets begging when the free hospice found her.
I simply wish life had been kinder to her.
There are too many women with her story. Too many women who are simply struggling to survive, who should be recognized, honored and loved but they’re left with no one to give them the love they so deserve.
Anila would always give me her gorgeous toothless smile whenever I arrived. She would lean over, pat her back and look back up at me and smile. She knew I could never say no to giving her a back massage. I can remember the feel of her hand in mine. I can remember how she liked to trace my hand with hers. I can remember the way her smile spread to her eyes and how one eye would crinkle a little more than the other.
I wanted to make sure she knew she would be remembered and that she was loved. At this time in someone’s life, at the end, I’ve found it’s reassuring for some people knowing they’re going to live on in some way, whether it’s through memories, a person, a cause… And it’s reassuring simply knowing they’re loved.
I can remember her patting the bed beside her and sitting on the edge, holding her hand. I was still holding her hand when she passed away. There’s a moment when you can see what made her Anila, what made her gorgeous, what made her unique, what made her eyes crinkle had slipped away. And I simply kept holding her hand, found it was difficult to let go.
This life, the time we’ve been given, it’s so fragile. We never know how much time we have left. Anila, she reminds me to give thanks for the time I’ve been given, the generous people I’m surrounded by and for what I get to fill my life with.
I already miss her.