When I showed up at the Zen Hospice Project for my Friday afternoon volunteer shift, the Guest House was abuzz: Dedan was back! He hadn’t been away physically — in fact, he’d been stuck in Bed No. 5 for days, either unconscious or in a state of delirium. All of us at the hospice who adored Dedan and his extraordinary wife, Belvie — nurses, staff members, volunteers — had little hope we’d ever get to hear his voice again.
Dedan Gills and Belvie Rooks had arrived at the hospice months earlier. It happened to be during my shift. The cancer that Dedan had been living with for years had gotten dramatically worse, taking him beyond the point where it made sense for him to endure any further invasive medical procedures, and Belvie had driven them both from Mendocino to San Francisco without ever stopping. They arrived, exhausted beyond measure, on the street by the Guest House’s rear entrance. In her haste to park and get Dedan inside, Belvie had left the car somewhat askew, at an angle to the curb.
As they settled into their room on the second floor, I came in, introduced myself as one of the volunteers on shift, and asked if I could get them anything. In truth, the only thing I knew how to prepare was espresso, from the donated Nespresso machine whose operation I had mastered. Everything else they might wish to eat or drink would come from one of our magical cooks in the kitchen downstairs, who provided all our residents with insanely delicious fare — pretty much anything they might desire. (In the past this had proven to be especially challenging for one particular resident, who’d suffered from dementia: watching the Food Network constantly, she’d ask for anything she saw them preparing onscreen. Once she sent me down to the kitchen for a strawberry cake, and then after I’d told the cook on duty, she said that actually now she wanted a pot roast. She ended up getting both.)
Dedan and Belvie invited me to come into the room and sit down, so we could chat. After a few minutes of conversation, I was madly in love with both of them. They asked me about myself, and I told them that I did comic monologues. Dedan, with his typical great charm, told me how, upon originally receiving his cancer diagnosis, he’d decided to watch a whole lot of comedy videos: the Marx Brothers, and on and on. He said that humor was the best medicine. Belvie told me that Dedan wrote poetry — to which he modestly added, “Well, I like to call myself a poet.” The ease, the love, the joy, between Dedan and Belvie was infectious.
Over the course of their months at the hospice, we all got to learn more about Dedan’s remarkable life. A major figure in the Black Power Movement, he used his profound intellect and empathy to link the struggles for social justice and the environment. There was a constant stream of activists, artists, and writers who came to visit with Dedan and Belvie; their laughter and music animated the entire Guest House, bringing cheer to the other residents.
But of course Dedan was there because he was very, very ill. And over time his pain kept intensifying, despite the best efforts of the nurses who were the heart of the Zen Hospice Project. Towards the end, he began floating in and out of consciousness as well — till he reached the point where everyone feared that his passing was imminent.
It was imminent — but not before that one particular afternoon. During the volunteers’ shift change, one of the nurses came in and asked if I could take Dedan downstairs. He was waiting for me in the second-floor hallway, all bundled up and in his wheelchair. After weeks of him being mostly bed-bound and out of it, his eyes shone again with the old light: it felt to me as if the sun had just broken through after Noah’s Flood.
We took the elevator down. The hospice’s elevator was tiny, and incredibly slo-o-ow. Even though it was just Dedan, his wheelchair, and me (furiously sucking in my tummy to make room), it felt a bit like the stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera. I could tell that Dedan was amused by our predicament. I was also recalling how, when he’d first arrived, he’d go bounding up and down the stairs — you wouldn’t have guessed then that he was mortally ill.
When the elevator finally released us onto the ground floor, Dedan suggested that we go out into the lovely backyard garden. It was incredibly hard for him to speak by that point. Physically hard — because, perhaps, his vocal cords had been damaged by illness. But also, his mental wiring had gone askew, so that his brain often had a tough time getting his mouth to say the right words. But the thing is, Dedan was there — all there. He was fully aware of his condition, which was terribly dire. But here’s the thing: What he communicated was love and joy.
After I got Dedan situated in the garden, Erin, the kitchen manager, approached us, sipping from a cup of coffee.
“Such an amazing young woman!” I said to Dedan.
He nodded. “She’s my girl!” he said.
Erin greeted us, then headed up the steps behind us to the shed where the administrative offices were.
Looking after her, Dedan mouthed the words, “I love you,” but no sound emerged.
When she came back out, she stopped to give Dedan a hug.
He pointed at her mug. “What’s that?” he said.
“That’s my coffee,” she said. “I make it good.”
Dedan and I both stared longingly at her coffee mug.
Spontaneously, Erin handed it to Dedan. “I want you to have this!” she said.
This was a delicate moment for me as a caregiver. In recent weeks, Dedan hadn’t always seemed strong or steady enough to hold a cup — and of course I didn’t want him to spill hot coffee on himself. Then again, there was also the matter of his dignity. Miraculously, on this afternoon, Dedan, at the brink of death, had come back to us — back to himself — and I wanted him to enjoy the maximum agency and independence. My faith was rewarded: his hand was steady. He raised the mug to his lips and took a sip, shutting his eyes in bliss. Then he said, “Josh, you have to share this with me.” For the rest of our time in the garden, Dedan and I passed the coffee back and forth to each other as we talked.
At one point, Erin came back out to check on us. Dedan told her that she had the lips of an angel, and Erin joked that she’d already told her girlfriend that she might be leaving her for Dedan.
A bit later, Dedan said to me: “I have an image of a man sitting on train tracks, drinking a coffee. What does that metaphor mean to you?”
I thought about it. “Um, hopefulness?” I said. “Moving forward?”
Dedan nodded.
Eventually he told me he was ready to go back inside the Guest House. I took him into the dining room and pushed him up to the head of the long table.
Priscilla, a volunteer cook, came out of the kitchen and asked Dedan if he was ready for lunch. He said he was. She brought him a steaming bowl of some sort of stew. He took a couple of spoonfuls, then offered the spoon to me. I took a few sips, then handed the spoon back to him. We ended up sharing the whole bowl like that.
Priscilla brought him a doughnut. He and I shared that as well.
There was a glass on the table that Dedan wanted me to hand to him. He tried pointing to it, then explained that some issue with his vision was causing him to think that things were over a foot to the side of where they really were.
In the center of the table were some little bowls with an assortment of candies. Dedan wanted me to hand him something — but he was having a really hard time getting the correct word to come out. He kept trying to point at what he wanted, but I kept retrieving something else. “No, that,” he’d say, pointing — and again I’d bring him the wrong thing.
Dedan said, “Josh, you’re picking everything but what I want!”
Finally, I realized that there was just one thing left — the one non-candy on the table: a tangerine. I grabbed it. “This?” I asked.
He nodded yes and laughed. I handed him the tangerine.
“Dedan,” I said, “please don’t tell my wife how long it took me even to consider the fruit!”
He laughed again. “Josh,” he said, regarding me kindly, “you an unusual dude!”
Later, after my shift-change meeting with the evening volunteers, I went to Dedan’s room to say goodbye. He was back in his bed, sharing loving words with one of his sons, Dedan Jr.
I hesitated in the doorway, unsure of whether I should interrupt them — but Dedan saw me and waved me in.
I went over to his bedside and knelt down, taking his hand.
I said, “Thanks for the coffee, food, and conversation today.”
Dedan smiled. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too,” I said.
I now know to put a box of Kleenex by my computer, 'cause every time I read your posts there are tears. You are the best, Josh. Love Dedan, his wife and everything about the SF Zen Hospice program. Forever thanks, Sara
This put tears in my eyes. You are truly a mensch. As is Dedan. :-)