April, over at Adventures of a Teen Sleuth commented "I need to put more thought and more of myself into my own volunteer work". I started to reply back to her about how I got into this line of volunteer work, but decided to post about it instead. Maybe posting about how I landed with Hospice might inspire someone else out there to find something that they can do to make a difference.

Five years or so ago, I wasn't doing anything outside of work, family obligations and social life. In other words, I wasn't really looking outside of my own cocoon to see what contributions I could make outside of my small world.

Around that time, I went to lunch with a good friend of mine. He'd always impressed me by his gentle nature and soft-spoken manner. He is smart, articulate and best of all, he enjoyed what a geek I am. He nor my husband know this, but he was most of the blueprint for the type of man I decided I wanted to marry.

During lunch, he shared with me his excitement over just coming back from visiting an African orphanage he was helping to build. He shared stories about the children that were heartbreaking, but I also felt hope because he was part of a group that was there to help. He's still involved in this group and has been back there many times. Last year when he got married, he and his wife even requested that donations be made to this group in lieu of wedding presents.

After our lunch together, I could not stop thinking about his contributions. I started to think about the fact that I wasn't doing anything really worth while outside of raising my two boys. But they were almost full grown at this point and I knew that it was time I got out there and did something.

That weekend I decided to do a google search on volunteer work in my area. I had no idea what I was searching for, but felt that I'd know it when I saw it. I also wanted it to be something that would challenge me. I typed in "volunteer + [my city and state]". There were several hits, but one jumped out at me, "There are many different volunteer opportunities available at [name of first Hospice I joined] Hospice Services: Patient Care Volunteers, Inpatient Care, Bereavement, Support Services, Animal Assisted Therapy, and Compassionate Touch......"

I sat back and thought about it for a while. I'd been a candy striper and also had a short stint volunteering in a nursing home when I was a teen, but I knew that this would be much different. The people in Hospice are actively dying. Could I handle that?

I don't know why, but I felt that I could. I also felt that this was something I could do that not a lot of other people could emotionally handle. This made it feel even more important to me because I felt that this was a volunteer organization specifically in need of people like me.

I signed up for the orientation and was overwhelmed with the feeling that this was indeed the right choice. I was in patient care for the first Hospice organization, but grief and bereavement had called out to me from even back then. So, when I moved and was settled into my newly married life, I looked once again online to find a Hospice organization close to me and signed up.

I often thank my friend for getting me motivated to join Hospice. It wasn't his intention at lunch that day to be a volunteer zealot, but I firmly believe that without him I'd never gone down the path toward Hospice.

So, as FTS wrote in my comments, I've found my niche.

Indeed I have.