During COVID, by father was dying in a hospice center (from something else, not COVID). Because of the circumstances and the condition of the medical system, it was impossible to get into where he was to see him, and the staff was too overworked and understaffed to find a way to connect us to him. He was alone, fragile, dying, and terrified.

As my mother and I sat in the reception area fighting with the hospice administrator, a medical transport pulled up and unloaded another patient. After putting the new patient back in their room the driver walked up to us as we were sliding into a heated argument with the hospice administrator.

She asked the administrator what the problem was and was told that policy was visitors can't be going into the patient area and it was very firm. They'd had issues with the local government about being slack about it. The driver turned to me and said something along the lines of "here's what we're going to do:

Since I can apparently run around freely in this place, I'm going to find your father and put a star in his window so you can always find where he is.

Number two, I'm going to give you a set of full hazard gear.

Number three" and she turned to the administrator put her finger up into her face and very sternly said, "they are going to hire you as a part time employee, in maintenance, or IT support or whatever, and your hours of employment here are going to be whenever you need to visit your father."

she turned back to me, "but this doesn't mean it's a free pass, you are going to wear all of this hazard gear whenever you come 'work' here, promise me that okay?"

She then took the administrator off to a side room, had a conversation, and I had a piece of paper to sign about 30 minutes later making me an employee of the hospice.

I made it into and out of the hospice without incident for the next week until we decided to bring my father home to die as he wasn't receiving almost any care there. I don't know what the ambulance driver and the administrator discussed, but I suspect it was the absolutely woeful state of the facility.

The look on my father's face when a head-to-toe masked man entered his room the first time, and when I took my mask off to show him I was there for him, and how the terror just simply fell from his face, is something I will always remember as is the kindness of the driver who put herself out there for us.

The period was incredibly hard, beyond the situation with my father, the medical system was in absolute shambles, and as my father's health was rapidly deteriorating, it was among the only kindness we received during that wretched journey.