I’ve been doing therapy work a long time, and one lesson I learned early that when there is trouble, nobody calls the volunteer. That is fitting, really, because his or her work is done, and everyone else had an awful lot of work to do.

I can’t count the times I’ve shown up to find people I have come to know, even to love, gone.

Nobody ever calls the volunteer. They are just too busy. And there are urgent things to do.

I was only away from the Mansion for a day and a half – I ran a poetry workshop just yesterday but didn’t have extra time. When I came in this morning, I found out that Shirley, who adored Red, and had been married to Bob for 65 years, had died in a nursing home 10 miles from the Mansion.

But it felt like I had been gone for months.

I saw a crowd in the great room, and asked Brittany in the office what was going on. She said Shirley had died and a memorial service was being held by her husband Robert, a sweet man and good friend. I actually came looking for him, I was bringing him the first copy of his new subscription to Builder Magazine, the one magazine he said he wanted to read.

I hugged him and he introduced me to his relatives: “this is the fellow I’ve been telling you about” he said, “he writes books and has a great dog and he comes here to help us out.” That would be an okay inscription on my tombstone.

Bob is an old-fashioned stoic, he rarely shows emotion. But his eyes told the story.

Remarkable Red took one look at the crowd, swiveled and plunged right in, making a beeline for Bob and some saddened relatives of Shirley. Red knows need when he sees it, and doesn’t need to be told what to do. There was need everywhere, he was soon surrounded by people hugging, petting and touching him.

Bob is ever gracious, and always thinks of others, not himself.

He apologized for not coming to our Open House as he planned, but he knew Shirley was close to the end and he wanted to be there. They had been married for 65 years, and he had moved with her into the Mansion to stay with her.

Now, he is sick as well, deciding whether or not to under go a grueling regiment of medication. He came on the boat ride to Lake George, and even danced once. Shirley was already in the nursing home.

As I made my rounds, there were more discoveries. Connie had been taken to the hospital again, further complications with her spine, and she had just  returned to the Mansion. I stopped in briefly to see her. She was exhausted and in great pain, her head was on her chest, I let her sleep.

I found Art in his room sitting comfortably in his new reclining chair. He said he had just returned from the hospital, there were some concerns about his heart. He was getting a mask to help him breathe more easily and sleep through the night. He wasn’t afraid, he said, it was God’s will, one way or the other.

I told him I was going to New Mexico Sunday and would be gone for a week. He asked if he could pray for my vacation, and I said sure. His son has not called him yet, I will call him again over the weekend and try to see what’s happening. I can’t and won’t pressure him, it’s  up to him to call if he wants to, not if he doesn’t.

We prayed together, more later.

I went to check on Bill, but he was sleeping and said he was in a bad mood and felt miserable. He didn’t want to talk. I have some books for him I think he will like, they are by the gay author Armistead Maupin, a chronicler of life in San Francisco in the 1970’s, he wrote the best-selling series called Tales Of The City.

I backed out of the room. I’ll bring them back later. I think I didn’t have the right head to talk to Bill, and that’s important to know.

On my way out of the Mansion, a resident stopped me in the hall. She said she is unable to walk and might have to go to a nursing home. She said she loved the Mansion and wanted to stay there, and could I intervene and ask the administrators to keep her where she was. She grabbed my and said she was desperate and frightened.

Could I help? I knew I couldn’t and shouldn’t. Mansion residents must be mobile to live there, residents who cannot take care of their basic needs and be mobile require enormous amounts of time and energy from the staff. The Mansion doesn’t have the staff to provide that level of care, nor would the regulators permit it.

Nursing Home is  fraught term among the residents. Nursing homes are places people often go and most often don’t return. They are often, although not always,  the next stop in the journey with only one end. People work hard not to go to them.

My work is centered around boundaries, and I respect boundaries immensely, without them, I couldn’t do this work at all, or do it well. I told her that I knew the administrators to be loving and conscientious and my role was not to question them or second guess them or interfere or try to influence any of their decisions.

She pleaded with me to intervene.

It was just not up to me to interfere with a medical and administrative decision like that. I have no idea where this person should or shouldn’t be. It would be unprofessional for me to get involved in a decision like that.

I said I would pass along the conversation, but that was the boundary. Beyond that, it was not my place to go. She grabbed my hand and kissed it, and I won’t say that wasn’t wrenching,  but I am very clear about the boundaries of my work. I am a volunteer, I help when I can.

Period.

My heart ached for all of them today, they are all courageous in their own way, sometimes battles are just too uphill to climb. And life tells it’s own story, the moving finger writes, and having write, moves on…

Sometimes it is hard to breathe in this work, sorrow and loss are just too close, you can breathe them in.

Bob and Shirley adored one another, he sacrificed much of his life to come to the Mansion and be with her, and now he faces some serious challenges alone. He wants to go to the car races downstate with me when I get back, I would like that.

Connie has been in severe pain for some weeks and months now, and although she is back and forth to the hospital again and again,  she is struggling. Perhaps you could think of her, she is a formidable and brave person. Maria and I will go and see her again with Red Saturday, before we leave for New Mexico.

She had a wonderful  year thanks to the Army Of Good, the knitting work she did gave her life form and purpose, and made her very happy. So do your letters, perhaps there is another chapter or more in Connie’s life.

I will write separately about my talk with Art. It was intense and emotional.

I know what this work is about, and I know that life goes in one direction at the Mansion, nobody comes out to return to the lives they loved. The staff accepts this idea, and I have been doing this long enough to know this is the truth. But their faces were long today too, and when I saw Maria, she asked me right away what was wrong, I seemed flat, down.

Sometimes, I said, it’s just heard to breathe. It’s good we’re going to New Mexico.

I left the Mansion with a heavy heart, and I could see the staff was drained as well.

I told DorLisa that I had prayed with Art, and he wanted to save my soul. She said I had a Jesus heart, and that meant a lot to me.

DorLisa is a healer, she knows what to say.

If you wish to write to Bob or Art or Connie or DorLisa or any of the Mansion residents, they would be pleased to hear from you. The address is 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816,