Emotional Development

“I met the two residents, and one of them took a liking to me I guess, her name was Claire… she’s very religious, and she’s like, ‘I can sense there’s something in you, are you Christian, do you go to church? And I was like, “Well I used to, but I don’t anymore. My parents made me and I just don’t like church, it’s boring.” And she started singing all these hymns, and praying […] she asked me genuinely, “Why are you helping me here, I’m dying,” and I told her […] ‘I really want to be there for people,’ and I don’t know, she actually got into my head somehow. And so I went to church the next day, it was still very boring, but it was like, I don’t know, she left something with me.”

-Suzannah Sheeran

“We had a resident, her name was Joan, and she had just that day brought in her musical clock, where every hour it played a different song, it was very loud. So every time I came to the room, she was like, ‘Oh, Sarah, press the clock, do the clock.’ Every time I went in the room it was because we had new volunteers coming in, and she was like, ‘Oh, gotta show them my new clock!’ She was really happy about that.”

-Sarah Smith

“In my homes, I had one resident who, he was was pretty uncomfortable and we had to give him his PRNs and his medications and stuff. And he would just, he would like to make these little noises and these little faces and just go ‘Aaahh… so good.’ And he loved the Beatles, Toby loved listening to the Beatles, so one day we just turned it up so the whole house was just playing the Beatles. And we were just sitting there, and we started talking, and it was so great, I could not stop smiling listening to him.”

-Rory Sommerville

“[My most memorable moment] was with Linda. She has bone cancer, so all her bones, all her body usually hurts too much, a lot. But she always managed to get out of bed, put on some lipstick, get some curls set. So on one morning shift I got there and she was putting her clothes on, a new sweater, it’s a pink one. And she was putting on lipstick, and she was like, ‘Nikole, could you help me do my curls please?’ I was like, ‘Okay, sure.’ We ended up spending almost a whole shift, four hours, trying to do her curls. And it was amazing.”

-Nikole Fandino

“My first resident, he was unconscious most of the time that I was there, but before he died there was… usually there’s like a tear or something from their eye, but I’ll wipe it up with a special rag and fold it up and put it in a box and give it to their family, and it made me smile because it touched them a lot and so that’s it. That’s a good thing. I really like that.”

-Nicholas Schultze

“We have a resident named Anne right now at the Shepherd home, she’s 69 years old and she really likes video games, which right off the bat was surreal, because I was talking to a hospice patient about Sonic the Hedgehog. But we got talking about Rochester and I asked if she’d lived here long, and she got the biggest smile on her face and said, ‘born and raised’ in such a proud voice, and you know senior year and all that a lot of people are ready to leave Rochester, and so meeting someone who was so genuinely proud to have lived here, just really left an impact on me.”

-Maya Hood

“So the tattoo that I have is of an ampersand, and it’s partially influenced by the conversations we’ve had in this class, and the ways in which I’ve interacted with residents. It kind of reminds me of what the future could be and of the things I get to hope for, and I have the privilege of hoping for, and the fact that the future isn’t set in stone and I could think about that, and the fact that residences can still crack jokes and be optimistic about tother people, not even just themselves near the ends of their life, I think just makes me optimistic and makes me kind of want to […] be able to follow my dreams. And what I feel is my purpose, kind of in remembrance of that and in honor of that, and honor the fact that even then they were able to find hope, I think I just want to be able to find that hope myself.”

-Kai DeJesus

“[…] talking to the residents at the homes… since they’re nearing the end of their life, it’s the perfect t time to share their story, share wisdom they want to pass on. Honestly, it’s really fun hearing what they went through, what they want to tell us, what stories they have.”

“[One resident] was a World War II and Korean War vet. He was still very energetic when he got in, like he was eating loads, he was laughing, he was joking around a lot, he was being loud. Which was honestly really fun, he was really fun to be a round, he was fun to talk to as well.”

-Corey Zhang

“When we were moving [the resident], she couldn’t quite explain how she wanted to be positioned but she said something that was just, it was funny and cute and I’m going to remember it for a long time, she described it as she wanted to look like a hot dog. She wanted pillows on either side of her, but she couldn’t think of the words to say that.”

-Connor Ferris