When he heard his father was in hospice, John almost didn’t go. Theirs was not an easy relationship. They hadn’t spoken in years.
But with his wife’s encouragement, he decided to make the drive from Boston to the HopeHealth Hulitar Hospice Center in Providence. He walked into the private room, and there was his father, looking so small in the hospital bed. He’d already slipped into unconsciousness, so there could be no tense conversation. Just a chance to acknowledge the man and their relationship, complicated as it was.
Overwhelmed, John took a seat at the foot of the bed. Then there was a knock on the door.
“I was sitting there just trembling with emotions,” says John, “and in walked Richard.”
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Pulling up a chair
Richard Donelly has been a HopeHealth volunteer for years, visiting with patients at the end of life and their loved ones. That day, he’d already been to a few rooms at the Hulitar Hospice Center before he made it to John’s father’s. When he saw John sitting there, he gave his usual intro: I’m Richard, I’m a volunteer, let me know if you need anything.
Then he waited a beat. Sometimes, what a person needed was to talk.
“You know, candidly, my inside voice was going, ‘Please just go away,’” John remembers. But something about Richard made him surprise himself. Instead of shutting down, he opened up.
“That’s my father,” John said. He pointed to the man in the bed.
“Okay,” Richard said. And he pulled up a chair next to John.
Neither of them can say exactly how long their conversation lasted, or how to explain their instant ease with one another. John shared what it was like growing up with his father, and the old hurts that had almost prevented him from coming to see him. They talked about love, loss, parenting, what makes life worth living. John couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a sign from his father, giving him something he’d never quite managed in life.
“There at the foot of the bed where my father was dying, Richard and I had this amazing conversation, more heartfelt and honest than any I recall having with my father,” John says. “If it was my father’s going away gift, it’s better than anything else I could have gotten.”
Its impact had just begun.
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“It rekindled the absolute joy I feel”
Some people say death teaches us about life. If John had not visited his father in hospice, he would not have met Richard. If he had not met Richard, he would not have wound up talking about his lapsed love of live music, and learning that one of his favorite local musicians, Tanya Donelly of the rock band Belly, just so happens to be Richard’s daughter.
He would certainly not have received an email a few months later with tickets to a Belly show, courtesy of Tanya herself. John and Richard met for wings and a drink before, their easy, inexplicable connection apparent as before. They met Tanya before the show, then joined the crowd for an amazing night of live music.
Throughout, John felt himself noticing something important. The collective energy, the booming bass, the jolt of community — this experience, for him, was one of those things that made life worth living. Why had he stopped making time for it?
“From the early 80s through early 2000s, that’s what I did,” John says. Since the Belly show, he’s been making it a priority to seek out live music again, making his way to the front of the stage for bands like Buffalo Tom, Jane’s Addiction and Peter Hook & The Light, of Joy Division and New Order fame. Songs that formed the soundtrack of his youth are now back in his life, hitting him in new ways.
“One of the things that Belly show did, for me, was rekindle the absolute joy I feel going to see live music,” John says. It’s also been helping him sort through his emotions in the wake of his father’s death. At a recent show, he felt something loosen in his chest, followed by a wave of tears. He felt better than he had in a long time.
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“It helped me frame my father’s life”
Some day soon, John and Richard plan to meet again at another Belly show. In the meantime, their friendship has meant a lot to both of them. “I hope I was able to somehow return your kindness,” John told Richard recently. “More than you’ll ever know,” Richard replied.
In the months since, John’s been to the cemetery a few times to visit his father’s grave. He’s been reflecting more on their relationship and the lessons he can take from it, including how he approaches parenting with his own kids.
That first conversation with Richard was a turning point.
“It helped me frame my father’s life,” John says. Sitting at the foot of his father’s hospice bed, he’d found himself telling Richard how his father had a difficult childhood: “He didn’t have it easy. You realize that nobody gets through life undefeated,” he said. He’d shared how his father became a captain in the Boston fire department. He was someone who’d saved lives.
“It didn’t work out for him and me,” John remembers telling Richard. “But he was an important person.”
At some point, it hit John that he was having exactly the sort of open, vulnerable conversation he’d always longed for with his father. Until now, the man in the bed had never been able to give that to him. Maybe now, through the kindness of this volunteer, he’d found a way.
“That conversation felt like my dad’s dying wish. I really feel I was gifted that time,” says John.
Eventually, John and Richard rose to go their separate ways. John was reaching for the door when he heard Richard’s voice behind him.
“He was talking to my father,” John says. “He was telling Austin that he raised a good kid.”