The Receiver
I will talk to pretty much anybody. I enjoy meeting new people, seek out the company of people from all walks of life, and believe that one way we move society forward is by being willing to meet people unlike ourselves with genuine openness. So it’s no surprise that I end up engaging a lot of people when visiting patients. This is especially true in retirement communities, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living centers. That’s how I met a patient named Marie, who wasn’t even on my service.
Skilled nursing facilities, in particular, hold many people in dire shape, living tightly restricted lives. A large number are bedridden, in steep decline, or nearing death. Despite the best efforts of staff to create community, many residents spend most of their time alone. For those who can’t participate in meals or activities, real human contact becomes rare. Their worlds shrink, sometimes to the point where they are trapped in a private prison of isolation. And every now and then, you come across someone who, stuck in one place, hungers for connection and reaches for it whenever possible.
“Smile, breathe and go slowly.”
I first met Marie while visiting a new patient, Sandy, at a facility I hadn’t been to before. Sandy was in the late stages of dementia and largely non-communicative. I planned to read to her and play some music—the only things she generally tolerated, and even then only for about twenty minutes before agitation took hold. After that, she often rocked violently, pulled at her clothing, and cried out in distress. She was sedated often, not preventatively but reactively, once she had already begun to unravel.
During my first visit, things went well—until they didn’t. After about thirty minutes of reading and playing music, Sandy began to rock, keen, and yank at her nightgown. I stood to find a nurse or CNA, anyone who could help. As I started toward the door, a soft voice from behind the curtain dividing the room called out, “Sandy! Sandy! Listen…” Then the voice began singing the Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” gentle but steady.
Slowly, Sandy’s frantic movements eased. The rocking subsided, the keening softened, and a few minutes later she lay still, eyes closed, breathing peacefully. The transformation was astonishing. I’ve seen agitated dementia patients many times, and their fear and confusion can rattle even seasoned caregivers. De-escalation is rarely quick, which is one reason sedation becomes the default response.
“When you are in psychological distress and someone really hears you without passing judgement on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good!”
When she finally slept, I stepped to the curtain and introduced myself. Her roommate, Marie, introduced herself in return and invited me in. Lying in the bed was a woman I guessed to be around fifty. I learned later that she was completely bedbound. She was overweight, though not severely, and there was a flat space under the blanket where her right leg should have been—almost certainly the result of a diabetes-related amputation, something tragically common in such facilities.
But what struck me first was not the physical details—it was the calm around her. Her blue eyes felt like deep oceans, steady and untroubled. Her expression was serene, like a glass-smooth lake. When she introduced herself, she didn’t assert or project herself the way most people do. She simply offered her name as if stating a fact, with no effort to push her presence outward. At first, I assumed this stillness was depression. But depression has a heaviness to it, a sense of air weighed down. Being with Marie felt more like stepping into an empty church.
“To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.
”
We chatted briefly. She brushed aside my praise of her singing and its miraculous effect on Sandy. I don’t remember everything we talked about that first time, but I do remember walking out with an unexpected sense of peace. The words didn’t matter; the atmosphere did.
Sandy passed away a couple of weeks later, and I was assigned new patients in the same facility. Each week, after finishing my visits, I made a point of stopping by to see Marie. After our greetings and my asking how she was doing, our conversations mostly turned toward me—my feelings, my worries, how I was holding up. We spoke very little about her. She wasn’t withholding; she simply seemed genuinely curious about the world outside her room. At least, that’s what I believed during the months I visited her weekly.
When I asked the staff why she was bedbound, they explained that she lived with significant pain and several other discomforts that made transferring her into a wheelchair—and back—agonizing. I never learned the exact diagnosis. It didn’t seem to matter. She was fully accepting of her situation, outwardly focused, and genuinely invested in other people.
Whenever I saw her, I found myself confessing exactly what I was feeling, sharing things weighing on my mind. It was like a brief therapy session—or a quiet confessional. She rarely offered advice; she mostly asked questions. And when I directly asked for her opinion, she often redirected the question back to me or gently said she wasn’t in a position to advise.
Yet I always left her room feeling lighter. Her acceptance was somehow contagious. Or maybe it was something harder to name. I imagine visiting a deeply enlightened monk or a truly holy person might feel similar. Though we never spoke about religion or spirituality, I’m convinced Marie was good for the soul.
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
Eventually, I no longer had patients at that facility. A couple of years passed before I ran into someone from the staff who told me Marie had died quietly in her sleep a few months earlier. I didn’t feel an immediate stab of grief, and for a moment I wondered if that meant I hadn’t been as connected to her as I thought. But later I understood: I didn’t feel she was gone. She had occupied so little physical space and yet somehow lingered in my mind. Maybe it was her lack of self-assertion, or the quiet that always surrounded her. All I have to do is recall that calm she carried, and there she is again—nudging me toward better questions, urging me to listen.
What stays with me most from my time with Marie is her endless curiosity about others. She was far more a receiver than a transmitter, and in that quiet posture she offered comfort. So often, I—and many people I’ve met—try to soothe others by offering opinions, instructions, or warnings. But support can come just as powerfully from listening, receiving, and showing sincere interest. Sometimes that is all a person needs: someone who proves, through their attention, that they truly hear you and that your experience matters.
