I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'm the first to roll out the story-catching service that our Hospice organization is offering. In theory, I'd meet with a patient whose family has requested this service and record a story on a little recorder; put the story on CD and present it to the patient and their family. It's not supposed to be an interview and you shouldn't hear my voice (much). Just the patient telling their story for about 20 minutes or so. In THEORY it should be an easy transition of sitting down, giving a brief introduction on the recorder of the patient's name and date and keeping the patient on track.

After reading a brief summary of what the patient wanted to share, I knew that it was going to be more than 20 minutes. No problem. The recording device has a lot of capacity.

To say this man was ready for the interview is an understatement. He started talking from the moment I walked into the door and I had trouble finding a gracious way of saying, "hey- we need to start the recorder." So much for graceful.

Twenty minutes went by.... then another twenty... and another twenty.... until we were up to three hours worth of 20 minute stories.

This man's eighty-something years of life have been amazing. Three hours wasn't enough, so I made an appointment to meet with him again. That was yesterday.

Again, I was off to a completely ungraceful start. I just decided to turn on the recorder as soon as I could- even though he was in the middle of a story. We spent another three hours together and I still feel that he had more to share, but it's important that we get this finished and presented to the family. My volunteer coordinator is under pressure to get our first story finished so the social workers will feel comfortable in referring the (totally free) service to more people.

I told my new friend that we had to wrap this up, and told him what would happen next. And then I did something I wasn't really expecting. I told him that I wanted to continue visiting him even though our project was complete, which really put a smile on his face (mine too!) I really had/have no intention of volunteering in the patient-care side of Hospice, but there's something about this amazing man that made me want to see him again. I called the volunteer coordinator and asked him if I could be assigned as this man's volunteer.

I promised the coordinator that I wouldn't 'adopt' everyone whose story I would be recording. Besides, when will I have time? I've also signed up to be in the new Hospice Ambassador program. Public speaking to create awareness about Hospice and what it has to offer.

Man, it's a good thing I don't have a job.

::KIDDING:: But I do need to make sure that I keep this balanced. Balanced? What is that?