But many people had no one.
After she passed, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.
So every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, I visited hospice patients who needed companionship or practical help. Sometimes I cleaned kitchens. Sometimes I picked up groceries. Sometimes I simply listened.
A few months before my life changed, the program coordinator called me.
“We have a new patient,” she said. “His name is Carl Reed. He has stage four pancreatic cancer and lives alone. He specifically requested someone comfortable with quiet visits.”
I didn’t think anything of the word “specifically.”
I wrote down the address and drove there the following Tuesday.
Carl lived in a modest blue house at the end of a tree-lined street outside Cincinnati. The yard was neat but plain. There were no children’s bicycles, no flower beds, and no car in the driveway.
When I knocked, it took him nearly a minute to answer.
He looked around forty, though illness made his exact age difficult to guess. He was tall but painfully thin, with tired gray eyes and dark hair beginning to silver at the temples.
“You must be Megan,” he said.
“That’s me.”
He gave me a small smile.
“I’m Carl. I apologize in advance for the mess.”
I looked past him at the spotless living room.
