Bookend Perspective
I sit with beginnings and endings every week. I spend time with high school teenagers who are relentlessly preparing themselves for their launch into the world and their independent lives. I also spend time with hospice patients who are reflecting on their time in this world as their lives wind down and they prepare for their final departure. This unique view from the opposite bookends of life provides me with a fascinating perspective. A lot happens in the middle of life, but the most philosophically rich parts are the beginning and the end.
“Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art. ”
I spend a lot of time in two different worlds. I am a mentor on an FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) robotics team. In this role, I work with high schoolers who are actively becoming adults—learning to communicate, build, and compete in preparation for graduation and their first big step out into the world on their own. I am also a hospice volunteer. In that role, I sit with people who are at the end of their lives, looking back on their time here while preparing for the final journey we all take into the unknown. Both my teens and my hospice patients are preparing for great adventure. Yet the paths they take are very different, as are the destinations.
The teens I mentor are working relentlessly toward the futures they want, and their possibilities are practically limitless. Most are applying to college, and with each application and essay, their options expand. Though that future, like all futures, is unknown, they reach and stretch outward from themselves further each week. My hospice patients, by contrast, are looking back and turning inward as they reflect on their lives and prepare for a truly unknown future. Their future is both limitless in its mystery and finite in the path they will take. Both teens and patients face the unknown. My patients look back until the very moment they must turn away, while the teens are always looking forward and must be encouraged to pause and reflect. My patients’ future is out of their hands; my teens have their hands all over theirs.
“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”
Teens are eager to receive mentoring and soak up information as fast as they can. They seek advice on how to navigate the world and build lives for themselves. They are asking me questions. Many of my patients, on the other hand, are eager to tell me about their lives. They rarely seek advice; instead, it is my role to listen and learn from them. I am asking them questions. With hospice patients, the direction of information flow is reversed. Patients want to impart what they know; teens want to receive it.
One similarity is that I help both groups with communication. I assist the robotics kids with essay writing and public speaking, often advising them on how to be more convincing as they pursue awards and college acceptance. With my hospice patients, I ask questions that help them clarify what they want to say about their lives. I also help some of them create documents describing their stories and messages for loved ones. Both groups seek to communicate—teens their future, hospice patients their past.
My experience mentoring teens informs my work with hospice patients, and the time I spend with my patients makes me a better mentor to teens. With teens, I must always make sure they are paying attention. That experience reminds me to stay present and deeply listen with my patients, most of whom want to feel heard. At the same time, I learn from my patients—by what they say and don’t say—lessons that shape my robotics mentoring. When my teens hesitate to try something new or are reluctant to jump in with wild abandon, I remember that none of my patients ever wish they had said “no” to more opportunities or that they had been less bold. I encourage the kids to step out of their comfort zones and live without regret. Often, each group benefits in subtle ways from what I learn from the other. My increased awareness is driven by the perspective my dual volunteer roles afford me.
“Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.”
At times I feel like a conduit between these two groups, who would otherwise have no connection. Outside of immediate family, the elderly and teenagers rarely interact. Though they are unaware of it, I am able to facilitate learning from one to the other. At the same time, both groups are communicating across generations. My teens share their visions of the future with me and others when they apply to college and for robotics awards. My hospice patients communicate their legacy through the life stories and messages they leave behind for children and grandchildren. For teens, the message is, “Choose me for these reasons. This is the future I want.” For hospice patients, it is, “Remember me this way. This is what I wish for you.”
My dual roles give me a unique perspective. There are both differences and similarities between high school teens and elderly hospice patients. Both are trying to communicate, but in different ways. Both are preparing for very different adventures. Both face uncertain futures; hospice patients look back on a life lived while teens look forward to one just beginning. The flow of information moves in opposite directions: teens seek guidance for what lies ahead, and hospice patients are determined to impart what they have learned. I stand in the middle, letting my work with each inform my work with the other. Interacting so closely with people at opposite ends of life helps me see life itself from multiple perspectives.
