Hospice volunteers honored for years of service.
By: Stephanie Brown
MONROE Seated at the kitchen table in their Greenbriar at Whittingham home Tuesday afternoon, Pat and Frank Cryan recalled some of the people they’ve encountered over the years as hospice volunteers.
Ms. Cryan told the story of Jean, a retired art and sculpture instructor who had taught at a high school in the Bronx, N.Y.
"He had such a wonderful life and had such a wonderful way about him," she said. "Up to the very end, even when he could only stay in bed, he would get dressed."
She paused, and looked up as if searching her memory.
"And he had this one red scarf that he insisted on wearing," she said, a comment that made Mr. Cryan chuckle.
"He was a gentleman," Mr. Cryan added.
"Oh yes, whenever we came in he would shake Frank’s hand, and he would kiss my hand," Ms. Cryan continued. "He was the sweetest person."
For almost a decade, the Cryans have dedicated their time and offered their friendship to hospice patients. On April 26, the couple received the United Way of Central Jersey’s Hometown Hero award for their hospice volunteer efforts with the Visiting Nurse Association.
"If it wasn’t for the volunteers, like the Cryans, I don’t know that the VNA would be able to put out the quality and quantity of services that it does," said John Ross, director of Volunteer and Community Relations for the United Way.
However, the couple considers themselves to be "just ordinary people."
"We’re nobody special," Mr. Cryan said. "We just made a special decision one day to volunteer."
The couple began volunteering in 1998 when they still lived in Long Island, N.Y. While at the local library, Mr. Cryan who had recently retired from his job as an aerospace engineer found out about hospice volunteer opportunities for the Visiting Nurses Association of Suffolk and Nassau counties in New York.
Ms. Cryan explained that she and her husband initially decided to volunteer because they both had been raised to be aware of and help those in need.
"I think it’s our upbringing," she said. "We’ve been trained to visit the sick and this was an opportunity to do that.
"I had done some reading about people who were in the end of their life, and we thought we had something to bring to them and they to us," Ms. Cryan continued.
After the Cryans moved to Monroe in 2000, they continued to volunteer, this time for the VNA of Central Jersey.
"They were extremely open and compassionate," recalled VNA Manager of Volunteers Pauline DePalma, who nominated the Cryans for the Hometown Hero award. "They both possessed a warmth and had a quiet way in their own relationship that I knew they would do well."
The role of a hospice volunteer, Ms. DePalma explained, is to visit with the patient, thus relieving the caregiver. As a result, the length of each visit depends on how much personal time the caregiver needs.
The Cryans recalled a case in which the caregiver, a niece, hardly wanted to leave her uncle alone. The first two visits she would only go outside in the garden, said Mr. Cryan.
"Finally, we had to convince her to go out," he said. "I guess she didn’t trust us at first."
But caregivers need not worry when leaving their loved ones in the hands of the Cryans, or any other hospice volunteer, Ms. DePalma said, because each and every volunteer must take a training course at one of the VNA offices before taking on a case.
In training volunteers learn that they are not supposed to do anything other than be friends with patient. Volunteers cannot administer medication, conduct any medical attention or even prepare food for the patient unless otherwise set aside by the caregiver.
"Anybody can do what we do," Mr. Cryan said.
"Yes, it doesn’t take any talent," added Ms. Cryan.
Remaining modest despite their recognition, the Cryans encourage others to volunteer with hospice.
"Most people think it’s a very depressing thing to visit people who aren’t going to survive, but we found just the opposite," Ms. Cryan said. "Many of the people are very much alive, celebrating life, happy and joyful."
They recalled one woman in particular who had been a world traveler before turning ill.
"She really began to relive her whole life," said Ms. Cryan. "We would enjoy listening to her describing all the places where she’d been. It made our visits so interesting."
"Every visit was a trip to a new country," added Mr. Cryan. Listening, the couple said, is truly what their volunteer work is all about.
"You learn to ask certain questions that can bring something out in them," said Ms. Cryan. "They might be kind of dull and listless, and you ask the right question, and all of a sudden they light up. They become alive before your very eyes." After years of volunteering, Ms. Cryan said she actually has become a better listener.
"I can get to the core of people a lot easier than I used to, and I’m more compassionate because of it" she said. "Someone once said that’s why we have two ears and one mouth, to listen more."
For more information on volunteer opportunities with the Visiting Nurses Association of Central Jersey, contact Pauline DePalma at (732) 224-6933.