I was writing names on Easter gifts a few weeks ago — carefully lining up Lindt bunnies and chocolate baskets — when laughter broke out in reception. My office is close by, and I welcomed the distraction from tedious work and went to investigate.
I found our reception team and a 13-year-old girl, Eliza, teasing each other. Kundai was wrapping Eliza’s hand in a bandage, but it was clear to me that there was no emergency, no pain and certainly no crisis here. I asked them what happened. George told me that Eliza had punched a bully at school and consequently had a sore hand. I was very proud of her feminism, but careful not to encourage violence, and George and Kundai teased her that she must like the bully, otherwise she would not have taken him on.
Eliza comes to us most days. Her dad is here for end-of-life care. He is young and there is no hope for a recovery from an awful brain tumour that is slowly changing everything about the dad Eliza knew. Caring for her dad is without a doubt our very first and top priority, but caring for Eliza in between might be just as important. I know that she feels safe with our team. She pops into the kitchen when her dad falls asleep or when it is too difficult to talk to the man she no longer recognizes as her dad. She props herself up onto the counter and watches the staff come and go, making tea or washing dishes, and she’ll often even give Dylan a hand rolling dough for his famous butter biscuits.
I know that for Eliza, her sister and their mom, the last months of her dad’s life will not just be a traumatic memory. Somehow my staff have made space for this 13-year-old to slot into our family. I’m so glad that Eliza and her people are spared the iciness of an institution and that they can have tender moments like laughing, baking biscuits with a handsome chef and getting cuddles from one of our cats. No effort can undo the quiet, unfolding tragedy of their loss, yet we can weave small, luminous moments of grace into the journey for them.
It has been said that in running a company an important motto to use is “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” I agree to a certain extent. We have to measure our costs, expenses, overheads, overtime and everything that makes our income statements and balance sheet look pretty. We can spend hours taking stock and making sums, but I don’t think we can ever truly ever measure what we do here accurately.
How exactly do you measure kindness, grace and compassion?
We know an older German lady, Clara. Her best friend was with us for one year for palliative care. Clara came every second day and simply lit up the room. For someone in her late 80’s, she was incredible. She laughed loudly, dressed loudly and had more energy than most 18-year-olds. She spent so much time at the lodge that she knew all our names, and on the day we attended her friend’s funeral, she sat with us. A while later, her husband’s best friend also stayed with us for palliative care too. Clara and I kept in contact periodically, but there was no reason really to continue a friendship.
Just before Easter, Clara phoned to say her husband has been diagnosed with cancer and is under treatment with an oncologist. Seeing that her husband is 97, my gut instinct was that he should be allowed to go gently rather than fight this disease aggressively with cruel invasive treatments, but Clara and her husband trusted the doctor. They have no family in South Africa and never had children, so the medical team is all they had to trust.
On Easter Sunday, Clara phoned and said Willem was really ill. She asked if we could move him to the lodge. They have great medical aid and would surely qualify to go into Zazen respite care for the last two weeks of his life. We sent the documents, referred the right doctors and I thought the next time we would see Clara and Willem would be when he would be admitted.
On Easter Monday morning, just after 5am, Clara texted: “If you are awake, please tell me what to do, Willem is struggling so much.” I knew Clara promised Willem that she would not take him to hospital, and it sounded so urgent to me that I did not think there was time to wait for an ambulance. And so, I woke up my daughter who is a clinical associate, and we jumped into my car and sped off on the quiet highway to Clara’s house.
Clara looked exhausted, so different from the energetic woman we know. She led us to the bedroom where Willem was, talking non-stop and recounting her sleepless night. He was actively dying but fully conscious and still managed to speak and understand us. Willem’s eyes kept looking for his wife of 65 years and she held his hand tightly. We stayed with them, we tucked Clara into bed next to Willem, gently explained what was happening while his body was shutting down, and gave them the space to take their last nap together. It went from a scary overwhelming death, which Clara would have had to handle alone, to a gentle goodbye, surrounded by people that often do this and were able to support them both.
How do I measure that?
Willem died anyway, and he would have, regardless of whether or not we went, but did it matter that we went. Definitely.
Maybe that is where the famous motto fails us: the most important things we manage here cannot be counted – only noticed, honoured, and protected. A safe kitchen for Eliza, a last nap for Clara and Willem, a room where death arrives gently instead of violently – these will never balance a sheet, but they are the only “numbers” that truly matter in the end.