By Bill Wertman, CEO, Big Bend Hospice
Last month, a caravan left Big Bend Hospice headed for Havana with a birthday cake, balloons, flowers, gifts, a guitar, and one very important mission: we had a 105th birthday to celebrate.
One of our patients in Gadsden County reached an extraordinary milestone, and our Volunteer Outreach and Music Therapy teams wanted to make sure the occasion received the celebration it deserved. Our team gathered outside her home, waited for the signal from her family, and walked in together to surprise her.
What followed was one of those moments that captures what hospice care is really about.
Our patient loves a good party. She enjoys Gin Rummy and dominoes and, after 105 years, has accumulated more than a few stories worth telling. With family and longtime friends in town from Mississippi gathered around her, she spent the afternoon talking, laughing, and enjoying the celebration. Our Music Therapy team played some of her favorite songs, and everyone joined together to sing “Happy Birthday.”
There was cake. There was laughter. There was music. And there was a 105-year-old woman, up and enjoying the people around her, doing what she has done for more than a century: living.
I wish more people understood that side of hospice. There is a common misconception that choosing hospice means death is just days away or that life somehow stops when hospice begins. That simply is not what hospice is meant to be.
Our patients have terminal illnesses, but they are still living. They still have stories to tell, birthdays to celebrate, songs to sing, and people they want to spend time with. Our job is to help make those days as comfortable and meaningful as possible.
For this patient, that meant being able to enjoy her 105th birthday surrounded by people who care about her. For another patient, it may mean managing symptoms well enough to sit outside on a favorite porch, enjoy dinner with family, listen to music, or simply have a good conversation without pain getting in the way.
Hospice does not ask people to stop living. At its best, hospice helps ease some of the burdens that come with serious illness so patients and families can focus more of their energy on living the days in front of them.
That is what this celebration in Havana represents to me.
A woman sharing stories and laughter. Family and friends making another memory together. And a hospice team supporting not only a patient’s physical comfort, but also the things that bring that person happiness and meaning.
As a community-based nonprofit hospice, we have the ability and responsibility to look beyond what can be measured on a chart. We care for people, not diagnoses. That means understanding what brings someone joy. It means learning the songs they love, listening to the stories they want to tell, and recognizing the milestones that still deserve to be celebrated. It also means supporting caregivers, who carry so much responsibility, by creating opportunities for them to simply be a spouse, son, daughter, or friend again for a little while. Our mission is measured in moments, not margins.
I want to give special recognition to our Volunteer Outreach team for making this celebration happen and to our Music Therapy team for filling the afternoon with songs our patient loves. They saw an opportunity to create joy for one of our patients and her family, and they made it happen.
That willingness to go beyond what is expected is one of the things that makes me proudest of the people who make up Big Bend Hospice.