My emotions

During my first visit to St. Christopher’s Hospice, I found that the hospice itself was nothing like what I had prepared myself for. After years of watching soap operas on T.V in which the tragic older cast member slowly fades away in a white haled, depressing, clinical hospice I had told myself to expect the worst. However, upon arriving an hour earlier than the rest of my class, I soon found i was very, very mistaken.

I wandered somewhat gingerly into the main reception area and was quickly greeted by a very perky receptionist asking how I was?! This was nothing close to the bleak resting place for the terminally ill I had seen on the telly, this place was far more like a hotel. I muttered that I was here for the BRIT art course with the patients and was told that I was early.

I then proceeded back to Sydenham station, had a coffee and an English breakfast and pondered over whether the lovely receptionist was a front for a sad building...

An hour quickly passed and I soon found myself being escorted around the grounds of the hospice. I was shocked; we passed through a music therapy room with electric guitars, recording equipment and a drum set. We the proceeded upstairs to the first wing on off the patient’s floor. Musing to myself of a very elderly group of musicians rocking out in music therapy, I was greeted to a cold reminder of what this place really was beyond the music therapy and the beautiful grounds (even the gym where the patients do Pilates) by the tour guide saying, ”oh and down the stairs is the morgue”.

The rest of the tour after that sentence consisted of a lot of mixed feelings for me. Seeing the beauty of the building and the grounds, imagining how nice it must be to be able live out your last days in this resting place brought a lot of peace to me as my aunt had recently died in a hospice and knowing that she received this level of care brought a smile to my face.

I can safely say that I’m looking forward to meeting and interacting with the patients.