Tomorrow Red and I return to the Vermont Veterans Home to visit the new friends we made last week and probably meet some new ones. Red is like a beam of light, he brightens the people and rooms wherever he goes. I had a dream last night about Timmy, an eight-year-old boy Izzy and I visited near Bedlam Farm while we were doing hospice work. Timmy was dying of brain cancer and his mother, a single Mom, was sitting by his side, night and day, exhausted, frantic.

Izzy would hop up in Timmy’s bed, and Timmy would put his arm around Izzy and fall asleep, and then Timmy’s mom would fall asleep, and I would stand back in the room and just watch this peaceful and beautiful scene, it was the only time she ever rested. They would sit like that for an hour, and then Timmy would wake up and so would his mother, she was beyond exhaustion.

One morning we came to the house and no one was there, and I knew what that meant, it happens all the time to volunteers in hospice, they are not the ones who get called rightfully. Izzy went to Timmy’s funeral and lay by the casket, I can’t imagine what he knew or sensed, but I guess I had the dream because my return to therapy work with Red has stirred up some memories. Hospice is a beautiful thing to do, never depressing for me, but there were those endings, again and again.  I suppose that may happen in our work with the vets too, and it is good to be prepared for that. I’m looking forward to seeing the vets tomorrow.