This skilled nursing home I’m referring to was really these folks’ home. It was their sanctuary, their refuge. And I was invited into their home as a volunteer to offer companionship. In turn, I scored bigtime with some of the most treasured friendships of my life. I’m certain most, if not all have died and ventured beyond by now. And yet their spirits and soul imprints still somehow keep touching my life.
It was their vulnerability to share their joys and their sorrows with me that allowed me to help nurture them and myself. For many, I was just like a granddaughter to them. This filled a void in me because my paternal grandparents died before I could even take my first steps and my maternal grandparents lived so far away.
This community service quickly became the blueprint to how I’d practice lifestyle medicine today. Oh, if we only knew back then what we know now. I can still remember being asked to get paid including benefits to provide the level of service I was willing to do for free. I couldn’t believe that it’d be possible to have a monetary exchange in my favor for doing something that I was ultimately getting rewarded for. That’s the long story, short of how I became a foodservice supervisor and diet technician back in the 90s.
Looking for more? Peruse Chapter 5: Living as a Death Doula of ‘Rise Above: A Playbook On How-To Keep Energy Flowing.’
Photo by 𝔥𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔞𝔯𝔶 𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔞𝔩𝔱𝔞 on Unsplash
Dr. Jaime L. Pula is the author of her newly released book titled, ‘Rise Above: A Playbook On How-To Keep Energy Flowing.’ She can be reached at jpula@artofhealthsciences.life. And she enjoys connecting on LI at: www.linkedin.com/in/drjaimelpula001/.