Instead, Waltz looks for people
who sense “God is calling them to this work” or who simply “want to do some good in this life.” One of those people is Teresia
Hartbegmeyer, 58, a retired nurse who worked primarily in geriatric care. She joined the NVDA and hospice team three years ago. Like Waltz, she is drawn to the elderly and dying. “It is a sacred time, not just for the person dying, but for the people who are present,” she said. Hartbegmeyer recalls observing
an autopsy in nursing school and noticing dried tears on the skin near the patient’s eyes. “It may have been sorrow, regret or a parasympathetic response, but it stuck with me,” she said.
Extra training for NVDA In addition to the half-day train- ing all VA volunteers receive, those who work with hospice get an extra 20 hours and NVDA participants get five hours. Training varies, but it includes the basics of health and safety in a hospital: gowning up, use of gloves and making sure plenty of disinfectant is used before entering a patient’s room. Te longer training for hospice
workers includes orientation to military culture and experience: the stoicism, not admitting fears and post-traumatic stress disorder. Once trained, some volunteers
prefer to work four- to eight-hour shiſts on the hospice floor. Others are added to the NVDA on-call list and assigned three to 10 days each month when they may be called to sit with a dying patient. “It is not a demanding schedule,” Morrison said.
While volunteers occasion-
ally step in during the last hours if family members get called away on other household demands, Waltz
said the NVDA program normally serves veterans who have no one during those last moments of life. Hartbegmeyer has met veterans
who have simply outlived their contemporaries and families. Oth- ers were homeless when they were admitted. She said her encounters with
homeless veterans have made her less judgmental of people who live on the streets. “Many [veterans] speak of their years in service fondly because of the structure,” she said. “When they got out, it was culture shock. Tey had difficulty thinking things through. [Tey felt] nobody ever taught them before they went into the military or to war.” Since the patients are usually
unresponsive, volunteers rely on nurses and other staff members to brief them on the veterans’ conditions. Volunteers also ask what staff
know of the veteran’s life. Some- times clues can be found in posters and photographs in the patient’s private room: he or she might have loved country music or NASCAR. Morrison always asks whether the patient likes to be touched. “You can’t just assume,” he said. Morrison first helped at the hos-
pital by playing cards and sharing coffee with convalescing veterans. He also identified their practical needs, such as clothes, eyeglasses and the like. Later he became a hos- pice volunteer. He describes his motivation
for volunteering as more practical than faith-based. “I don’t have an evangelical point of view,” he said. “It just makes me feel good, like I’m contributing.” Both his parents served in the
military and he has had several experiences with long illnesses and death in his large family. He specu- lates that these experiences prepared him for this work. To prospective volunteers, he
advises: “You can’t be tentative about touching the sick or dying. Te reality is this is not for everyone. … I just want to do some good. I can be with someone on this side of the pale. I don’t know what happens on the other side.”
Author bio: Libbey is a free- lance writer in Albuquerque, N.M.
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