Nobody’s Gonna Care

“When I’m gone, nobody’s gonna care about me.” The words hung in the air not as an accusation or a bitter reproach but as a simple statement of fact. The hospice nurse, social worker and I exchanged glances, not sure what to say that wouldn’t sound trite to the emaciated man sitting on the bed. Finally, out of the silence, one of our group quietly replied: “When the time comes, people will be there to remember you.”

We had gone to a run-down motel on the west side of town on a hot summer afternoon to meet Joseph, a 49-year-old homeless veteran.

“Yeah, I’ve got a few friends who come by. They might care about me.” He winced with pain. “But what I really need right now is something for this pain in my neck and shoulder. It gets so I bad I can’t hardly sleep at night no more.” The cancer that had started in his esophagus was now spreading into his lungs and other vital organs. Joseph had only a few months left to live.

As the nurse examined him, I looked around the room at his few belongings: some books and DVDs, clothes folded neatly on a shelf, a backpack, a baseball cap, three pairs of sunglasses. In answer to the nurse’s questions about his medications and doctor visits, Joseph thumbed through a note book until he came to a page with columns and rows he had ruled by hand and meticulously filled with dates, times, and medication names.

“Looks like you keep excellent records,” I said, fishing for a way into his life.

“Oh, yeah. I got it all here.” His voice, dry and rasping from the swelling in his throat took on a note of pride. “I lost all my teeth two years ago when they gave me the radiation, but I’m finally getting my dentures in a couple of months.” He pointed to a date in his notebook. “I can’t wait to eat me a big ol’ cheese burger,” he smiled. Then he winced with pain. “But man, I hurt so much I can hardly swallow,” he groaned through clenched jaws.

Joseph had been referred to our hospice by a downtown clinic that serves the homeless. For a while, after he had suffered through several painful surgeries and radiation treatments, his cancer seemed to be in remission. Talk was of helping him find housing and a job. His case worker at the clinic managed to get him a bicycle so he could get around town and visit the public library, his favorite place to spend an afternoon. Then the cancer came back, more aggressively this time, invading his lungs and liver as well as his throat. The doctors at the clinic were sorry; there was nothing more they could do to cure him. It was time for hospice.

As the weeks went by, I began to hear pieces of Joseph’s story. When I first met him, the respectful tone in his voice when he shook my hand and said “Chaplain” told me that Joe had been in the military. “Marines,” he confided. “I was discharged, what they call ‘Other than Honorable,’ because I was caught smoking dope.” He used to work in a tire factory. Spent some time in prison. I never found out how he became homeless. As for family, he said he grew up with a bunch of stepbrothers and sisters. “My dad and step mom live in Missouri. I have a stepbrother in California and a son in jail in Florida.” No mention of a wife. He refused to name anybody as his next of kin in the hospice paperwork our social worker made him sign.  Most of the lines and boxes on his bereavement assessment form were left blank. “I have a couple of good friends,” he repeated when we asked him about funeral arrangements, “but nobody who’ll want to have a service for me when I’m gone.”

Joseph spent his days faithfully tracking his medications, keeping appointments with Social Security and his dentist, and riding his bike to and from the library, where he exchanged books and DVDs and hung out with other homeless friends. Each time we met, I felt we got a little closer. I asked if I could pray with him, but he didn’t want that. “Just pray for me chaplain, that’ll do. I ask the Good Lord every night to forgive me.”

Joseph talked a lot about his pain, the dope he sometimes smoked to take the edge off, the ordeal of getting pills past the scar tissue in his throat, the water, coffee and beer he would drink to try to dislodge them and wash them down. And his dentures. He talked about getting an appointment for a final fitting in a few weeks. “I’m gonna eat some solid food even if I have to mash it down or cut it into little biddy pieces,” he would say, miming the motions in the air. All the while, his body grew thinner and thinner and his voice became harder and harder to understand.

Eventually, the case worker at the clinic managed to move Joseph out of the motel and into a small apartment in a block of subsidized housing. We all knew this would be his last move. Joseph was proud of this place he called home. He kept the dishes washed, the counters clear and the bathroom meticulously clean. When he smoked, as he often did, he opened the windows, turned on a fan, and sprayed air freshener “just to keep the place smelling good,” he would say with a lop-sided smile.

Around his birthday in September, Joe told us his brother Steve from California was coming to take him camping for a weekend. I met them both at the apartment on the day Steve was set to leave again for home. Joe was the happiest I had ever seen him. Dressed in a maroon sweat suit that hung loose on his skinny frame, white tube socks and a baseball cap, he sat in an oversized armchair and smiled as Steve told stories of camping in the canyons by a lake, drinking beers together, fishing away the golden autumn afternoon, and, of course, boasting about the size of the ones that got away.

When it came time to say goodbye, Steve fought back tears as he, Joseph and I talked about his final wishes. I explained that since Joe was homeless and without income, the county indigent burial fund would pay for his cremation. Joe nodded in a matter of fact way. When Steve choked out, “Will they send me his ashes afterwards?” I assured him they would. “Can we have a moment of prayer, chaplain,” Steve asked. Joseph nodded his agreement, so we all three bowed our heads and prayed. This was the first time Joseph let me pray with him. “I’ll come back again in a few weeks when I get time off,” Steve promised as I left the two brothers to say their goodbyes.

In the days that followed, Joseph and I now fell into the habit of praying every time I stopped by. One day, out of nowhere, he asked “Chaplain, do you think I should get baptized?” Curious, I replied “I don’t know, Joe. What do you think?”

“When we were kids, I remember we used to go to a little Nazarene church most Sundays. But I don’t remember anybody baptizing me.”

“You tell me when you’re ready, and I’ll be honored to baptize you.”

Before long, our hospice team noticed a significant decline in Joseph. He was in constant pain now, but no longer able to swallow his regimen of pills. With very little persuading, he agreed to a morphine pump and a hospital bed in the front room of his apartment where he could watch the DVDs he borrowed from the library. As his condition deteriorated, I called his brother Steve. “I have vacation in about 10 days,” he said. “The sooner you can come the better, Steve” I replied. “I wouldn’t wait if I were you.” The next day, Friday, Steve called to say he had managed to get time off work. “Tell Joe I’ll leave Sunday morning, spend the night in Mesquite, then I should be in Salt Lake by mid-morning on Monday.”

When I pulled up in front of his apartment later that day to relay his brother’s plans, Joseph was checking his mail box about 50 feet down the sidewalk from his door, a tall, skinny stick figure in sweat pants, a baseball cap and  sunglasses. When he turned and began walking home, his progress was unsteady and painfully slow. He raised a long thin hand in greeting as he came up to me.

“You doing OK, Joe?” I asked when he came close. “I like this pump,” he replied in a hoarse whisper that was all that remained of his voice. He lifted his T-shirt to show me the needle that disappeared under his skin, taped over with a clear adhesive patch. I could count every one of his ribs.  “When I need a shot of pain medication, I just push this button.” I followed behind as he walked unsteadily into the apartment and sank in exhaustion onto his bed. “I’ve got no energy any more, chaplain,” he whispered. “I won’t be riding my bike again either. I can’t lift it onto the bus and it’s got a flat tire now, so that’s the end of that.” Then in the only flash of anger I ever saw from him, Joe rasped. “Two f¬—–g years! Two f—–g years waiting for my teeth and now it’s too late. I won’t get to have a single bite!” The realization seemed to deplete whatever reserves of energy Joseph had, and he lay back on the hospital bed and closed his eyes.

“Joseph, Steve called today to say he’ll be on his way to see you soon. He’ll be here Monday afternoon,” I told him. “How about we baptize you then?” He answered with a nod of his head.

Stubborn will power kept Joe alive that weekend. By Monday morning, he was still conscious but barely connecting anymore with the people around him. I arrived about 11 o’clock with a little bowl, some seashells and a tiny bottle of rose oil. Joseph nodded and gestured weakly as I told him his brother would be here soon. “This is the day you’re going to be baptized,” I reminded him. His head moved ever so slightly: “Yes.”

Just after noon, Steve pulled up outside the house. “I got here, brother Joe,” he said as he knelt by the bed and held Joe’s hand, fighting back tears. “Came as fast as I could. It was raining most of the way, and when I looked back there was something I have never seen before. A rainbow stretching back down the road from the bed of my truck. I don’t know how far it went because I couldn’t see the end, but I drove here with a rainbow in the back of my truck. By the way,” Steve added, “I put two dollar bills in the slot machine at the casino where I stayed last night. I lost my dollar, but you won ten bucks.” All of us in the room laughed, relieved by Steve’s sense of humor; but our eyes never left the jaundiced face of the dying man in the bed.

“Are we ready,” I asked as the laughter died away. Heads nodded in reply. I reached down to hold one of Joseph’s hands which were folded across his chest grasping a smooth wooden cross I had given him a few days before. “Joseph, do you renounce the powers of darkness and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,” I asked him. His answer was a faint squeeze of my fingers. “Then I baptize you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Then I reached for my bottle of anointing oil and made the sign of the cross on his forehead and the backs of his hands. The sweet scent of roses filled the air.

Back home that night, I was restless in my bed. I woke at 5 AM with Joseph on my mind and was unable to fall back asleep. While the sky was still dark about an hour later, my work phone buzzed on the bedside table where I had left it turned on all night. “I just got a call from Steve,” the hospice nurse said. “Joseph has passed away. They’ve been checking on him every hour throughout the night, and when they went in this last time, he was already gone.” Joe had slipped away peacefully just before dawn on a beautiful fall morning.

A few days later, a mixed group of well wishers gathered to say farewell to Joseph in a corner of the downtown library’s rooftop garden. His nurse and I were there along with our social worker and two members of our office staff.  Joseph’s case worker and three other staff members from the clinic came. Half a dozen of his closest friends also arrived, some of them drinking buddies, others friends who had stayed with him overnight and had been there when he died. His brother Steve had stayed for this gathering before driving back to California.

Though it had been raining off and on all morning, a patch of blue opened up and the skies began to clear at 11 AM. Soon, the sun broke through in patches all over the Salt Lake valley. From our vantage point high above the streets we could see shafts of light shining down like spotlights on the foothills and mountain peaks in the distance.

“I will lift mine eyes to the hills,” I began. “From whence comes my strength?”

“My strength comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth,” whispered one of the clinic’s employees.

“We’ve gathered here this morning to remember Joseph,” I said looking around at the faces in front of me – young, old, male, female, white, black and brown.

“When we in hospice first met him, he was in a dark and lonely place. He said no one would care when he died and no one would come to a service to remember him.” People shook their heads, some smiling, some looking down at their feet. “We told him then that there would be people who cared for him. And here we all are today. So let’s remember him.”

One by one, people talked about Joseph, with humor, with sorrow, and with love. As the clock in the bell tower of the nearby City and County Building struck noon, I closed with this prayer: “Almighty God, help us know that your care enfolds all people, that you are our refuge and strength, and that underneath are your everlasting arms.”

Blue sky now spread above our heads like a canopy. Joseph was safely home at last.

© 2013, Chaplain David Pascoe