Today was my day to deliver Meals On Wheels. Carolyn took the opportunity to go with me to get a little feel for what it is like. I'm still so new at it that I can hardly tell her how it "usually" is. Still it seemed like my fellow volunteer drivers were a little more talkative than usual and it might have been because Carolyn was there so they felt obliged to fill her in for my sake.
One of the fellows noted that the routes aren't very large and it apparently takes some effort to keep them of any size at all. Some of that was due, he thought, to the poor administration of the program by the county but even more so was that we kept losing clients. A small portion is due to the clients not liking the service or the food but this veteran of over 5 years felt the biggest reason was death and deterioration of our clients. They get so frail they are moved into a medical facility or they simply pass away.
I thought about that and the one client to whom I delivered a meal last week who couldn't sit up on her couch and say hello to me like she had previous weeks. I held her hand and wished her a merry Christmas until I had to continue my route. I had hoped she was feeling better today. However, when I knocked on her door with the usual call of "Meals on Wheels" her son answered the door and told me his mother had died on Christmas day. He indicated it was something the family had sort of hoped for and was resigned to. But it did make me realize that every meal I deliver might be the person's last; every visit, the last I may see that person. It makes me treasure the opportunity just a little more.
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