When I was five year of age, I discovered I could sing, and act, and dance. I started doing theater productions locally and professionally. By middle school, I was a self-taught method actor. I recall reading what Constantin Stanislavski, the father of method acting wrote, “There are no small parts, only small actors”. I would never dream that I would truly dive into the meaning of this on a stage called life.
Last year, the advanced internship placement for my studies at a social work graduate school, was in a hospice agency. I had clients at different long term care facilities throughout Central New Jersey. I swiftly learned one day when I started to croon some Frank Sinatra tunes that music started to transform my aging patients. It brought them to life. I could see their toes tapping and fingertips keeping the rhythm of the beat. Then, something happened. Through this connection, my advanced dementia patients started to sing lyrics, their families were reporting more moments of clarity, and I was being known around the facility through the label bestowed upon me by the Social Worker in the dementia wing, “The Alzheimer’s Whisperer”. I started to gain confidence in my ability to breakthrough barriers and to bring the present moment of the here and now to these patients. And then, I was assigned to Leena.
Leena was a petite 87 year old women with Advanced Parkinson’s Disease and Advanced Dementia due to Alzheimer’s. The first two times I went into her room, she was laying in her bed with eyes shut. Each time, I left disappointed as time is of the essence in hospice settings. See you tomorrow truly may not ever come to fruition. On my third attempt, I paused before leaving to fill out some paperwork notating, “Leena still is sleeping upon my arrival”.
I packed up and started to leave when I heard, “You don’t have to go. You know,” Leena expressed in her tough, yet soft, Italian New Jersey accent. “Why do you never stay?”
I looked at this woman who continued to lay down in her bed, eyes wide shut, who apparently knew I was there the first couple of times as well.
“I can stay!” I replied back happy to finally get to know this woman I have been visiting.
After almost an hour of sitting presence, Leena, never shy to voice her needs, said, “You can go now, you know.”
The next two weeks, Leena and I became a force to be reckoned with. She would lead the way down the hallways, holding onto me for dear life on unsteady feet, yet always in command, “You can take me there, you know!” And I did. Leena led and I followed.
The last week of Leena’s life, she was less active. Less talkative. We stopped walking. We stopped talking. We went back to how we first met. We went back to presence. Just being there with each other. In that last week, Leena’s favorite place to hang with me was on the dayroom couch. She would take her shoes off, swing her legs up onto the sofa and place her head on my shoulder. Leena, still directing our exchange, took my hand and placed it on her head. I stroked her hair and she would fall fast asleep.
Two days before Leena transitioned, we were on that couch with her legs up and her head on my right shoulder. This time, she reached for my right hand, and placed it over her heart. I whispered to her, “Yes, Leena, I can stay. I can stay with you”.
You see, I didn’t really understand at that time the importance of just staying. I did not have any major part. I was not performing CBT, REBT, DBT, or any specific approach to her care. I was just keeping presence. I was just staying with Leena. She is one of those patients that will stay with me forever and a day. It was just my use of self in a strong therapeutic alliance that we had built which what mattered in the end.
I went home that night and cooked dinner. I mean I cooked dinner. That is what I did in that moment. I didn’t text, stop to chop the onions, go over my little one’s homework and stop to stir the pot. I just cooked dinner. Then, I asked my family to tell me about their day. I listened….actively. The food seemed to taste better. The time seemed to be enough to get everything done. Nothing seemed rush. I was learning the art of being present in everyday tasks.
Through working with the dying, I learned how to live differently. To just be.
I know all too well after spending many days and nights in hospitals battling my own illness, of the visitors who stay and start checking their watches, looking at their phones, and stating, “How can you just lay here all day and all night?” For Leena, the facility was her home. Through presence, I was able to be awake to the stage she took her last performance on. By releasing control over to her and following her directions, she became the director and the lead in her show. My role was mostly silent, but as Stanislavski said, not a small role as her run came to a close in this life.
One of my favorite Shakespeare monologues in As You Like It begins:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts.
I am honored and grateful to have been a part of Leena’s final performance. One of the shortest runs, least lines and yet, most rewarding roles of my life.
