DIANNE’S DOGHOUSE
BRING JESSE NOW!
It was pretty clear to me that Jesse, my beautiful one hundred pound Golden Retriever needed a job. A therapy dog team is like a pair of dance partners, able to anticipate each other’s moves, read body language, and pick up on the most subtle cues. We were ready to dance, and we were excited to begin our direct-patient care service, as brand new Hospice volunteers.
To prepare for our first patient, I gave Jesse a bath with cherry vanilla shampoo, then gave her a good brushing and placed her identification necklace, and red scarf around her neck.
We proudly walked to the nursing home and located the correct room. When I saw the gentleman’s name on the door—my heart stopped beating! Don, the meanest man in the world, was Jesse’s first Hospice patient.
About two months earlier, Don came to look at one of my remodeled houses with his daughter. His daughter loved the house and wanted to sign the purchase agreement.
Don began verbally ripping the house apart—inch by inch—electrical, plumbing, paint, carpentry, etc., etc. He not only insulted my hard work but began to attack my character as well.
I was too dumbfounded by his evil string of abusive words to reply, or to stand up for myself. By the time Don and his daughter left, I was crushed to the floor.
Jesse and I met our weekly obligation with Don for months. Usually Hospice is responsible for a patient deemed terminal for a six month period, then staff and volunteers are called off. After six months, Don was still alive and stable. We continued our visits anyway.
One afternoon, I received an emergency phone call from the nursing home. “Please bring Jesse—quick! Your patient Don is hysterical and violent. We’ve tried everything to calm him down and nothing is working. BRING JESSE NOW!”
Jesse and I entered the room to find Don totally out of control. His sweet little wife could not calm him down. Even though Don was older and weak, he could send her flying across the room with his thrashing arms and legs.
Jesse slowly walked over to Don’s bed and waited. His wild eyes spotted her and he waited. She laid her head on the bed. He stroked her ears. Ever so slowly he came back to reality without hurting her.
As he petted Jesse he talked and talked. He just realized he was going to die and didn’t know where he was going. Don had spent years ignoring God, feeling lonely, unsafe and unprotected.
Life was a frightening place because he thought we were all just thrown out here with no purpose, no plan, no direction, no help.
Little by little, with great trepidation and embarrassment, he began to entertain the possibility of God’s existence. He was amazed to find out that after all this time, of pushing God away, that God had never gone anywhere. All he had to do was open his ears and his heart and find God, right there waiting.
Don died shortly after this amazing journey, and Jesse and I felt privileged to have had the meanest man as our patient.
How can I help you say goodbye?
It’s ok to hurt and it’s ok to cry. Come, let me hold you and I will try.
How can I help you say goodbye?
Blessings,
Dianne Hammontree, secretary of Homeward Bound Dog Shelter, of Ashland County
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Original source found here.
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