Connie
Connie is a very elderly woman, early to mid 90’s, who shows up to the hospital multiple times a week for multiple hours a day, not as a patient, but as a volunteer. Her hair is voluminous and pearly white, and she’s just a beautiful person in and out, always generous and beaming, with a smart sense of humor. Connie is basically the epitome of the ideal grandmother.
I met her when I was a student volunteer at the hospital back at home, and her presence in general, plus her stories and her humor (not to mention the cookies she brought) always made my time at the place worthwhile. I still have very specific memories from those days — listening to her talk about her children and grandchildren, waiting with her for her cab, scheming together to get me and the others out of wheeling 300lb patients out, and more.
Today, 4 years later, my sister is a volunteer at the hospital, and Connie is still there and still shows up multiple times a week for multiple hours a day, not as a patient, but as a volunteer. Today, my sister told me that Connie was missing from her usual chair in the volunteers’ room. Word was, she had stood up from her desk during her shift and had fallen and broken her wrist. And then, out of nowhere, an orderly comes along, pushing Connie in a wheelchair. She has a cast on her arm and is smiling excitedly and chirping “Hello” to everyone she sees.
Such a trooper. She is definitely one of my heroes.
