“My mom had a rare brain disease. And towards the end of her life, she became a hospice patient,” said Nicki Tempesta, volunteer services coordinator for Central Coast Home Health and Hospice.
Her mother, Jeanne, spent her final days at a hospice center in Fresno.
“After that, I couldn’t go anywhere near that house,” Tempesta said, “It was kind of in the middle of town.”
Triggered by grief for years, she avoided the place until a close friend called her with a request.
“Her husband had cancer, and she called and she said, you know, he’s dying. Can you come and sit with us? And I said, of course, thinking I’m going to their house…” said Tempesta.
But when she arrived, she found herself back at the same hospice center where her mother had passed.
“I just sat there with her at his bedside that night,” Tempesta explains, “and he passed that night she was with him.”
She tells me her friend was deeply grateful for her presence.
“She said, I just want to thank you for being the only person that was willing to just be with me in that room, ” said Tempesta.