This Is Us
Getting in Bed With Dying People
At some point in our lives, we trade bedtime fairy tales for the intimacy of telling the truth
I.
One of the first people I got in bed with as a home hospice social worker was a 90-year-old man who had threatened to shoot himself with his handgun. Terrified, his family called hospice asking for help — he’d been a cantankerous man with a temper all his life — they didn’t know what he might be capable of.
A supervisor called me: “Go over to Mr. Montgomery’s house and see if you can get him to give up the gun.” His family said they didn’t know where he kept it. This was his power move — that they didn’t know.
“One day, you’ll come over and I’ll have put myself out of my misery.”
I didn’t know Mr. Montgomery at all. I’d never met him. But I found myself driving to his home to disarm him.
When I got there, a nurse’s aide let me in and took me back to his bedroom, where he lay in bed. He couldn’t get up. He was too weak. How is this man supposed to shoot himself? I thought.
“Hi, Mr. Montgomery,” I smiled. I must have been about 32 at the time. Probably rather fresh-faced, with a young family at home.
