Ieva, a dentist who volunteered for three weeks in a nursing home: “Today’s reality is like this. In its darkness you find the light “Life

According to Eve, this year she planned to meet with Advent in silence at home, protecting herself from the virus, restricting social contacts, prayer, reading, concentration, delving into the meaning of Advent.

However, the girl’s plans were superseded by an article seen in the last days of November about the fact that Marijampolė St. At Mary’s Home, COVID-19 has infected most of the staff and part of the population, thus looking for volunteers to help with the work.

“But I’m safe, I want to celebrate the great parties of the year with ease,” I thought. And there are other outskirts of Lithuania, so there will definitely be helpers living closer. Just the idea that you have to drive did not disappear, ”Ieva wrote on the social network.

After calling the indicated contact phone number, I. Neseckaitė spoke with one of the monks who was working there at the time. He assured that there are still local people, but he will write down Eve’s number and call if something changes.

“The next day, I found three missed calls from the same sister. When I called again, I heard that three more workers were sick and, if I could, I had to come. I carried my backpack for about two weeks and went to Marijampolė on the fifth morning.

Arriving and getting acquainted with the nursing home, somewhat used to being with the fourth level of protection and the resulting difficulties, after three hours Ieva was left alone in the nursing home medical home.

“That’s why we needed that university with all the non-dental practices, that’s why all those other practices in life, not just nice ones.”

When night came, I knew that tomorrow morning I would be alone. The first answer in mind was “nonsense, I can’t”; but the retreat is nowhere; I may not go, but then no one will come. We breathe. Well God, you started it all, you got me out, you know better where I have to be and what I can do than my fears, ”Eve said sharing her emotions.

– Eva, was the nursing home looking for people with a medical education?

– The situation was like looking for anything. That would not be the case in the spring in Italy, when he closed his grandparents’ house and then came to collect the dead.

The Marijampolė nursing home cares for 36 people and the staff is ill. Nine nursing home residents were also ill. When I arrived, there was only one employee left. All of us are volunteers.

– How much time did you spend in the nursing home?

– Twenty days. I do not remember the first days with the little things, they remained in my memory as submerged in anesthesia. All I remember is that there were long hours of work, a lot of concentration, no distractions at parties, an impassive mind and the feeling that everything would be fine. And the volunteers unit, breathing with the same frequency. They were all amazing.

Each person, accompanied by Eternity, healed, with pain and praying in one’s loneliness, and who wants more than a medicine to caress your hand and says nothing more than looks with pure eyes, is not only the mother, the father someone’s. , grandfather or grandmother, but mine too.

– Where did you live those twenty days?

– Next to the nursing home there is a monastery of poor sisters, and next to it – a hut, where there used to be an orphanage. That is where we lived. The remaining employee also lived in that cabin; all other employees were in isolation. And that there was only one day left working.

– What was volunteering, what kind of help did the nursing home need?

– I have a medical education and I was one. They only asked me to be at a medical point because I was a person who understood something about medications, about a health condition, its evaluation, diseases and things like that.

It was necessary to allow the drugs, distribute them, evaluate the state of human health with the available means, respond appropriately to the situation and, if necessary, transport the population to the hospital and, sometimes, when the agony began, see the patient leave. person “.

We don’t count the hours there much and we don’t think about them much. It was like this: if you don’t come, nobody comes. There was no question of what to do depends and what not. If you see you have a minute to spare, go, feed, close, or just stop by for a chat.

After all, before that disease, life took place there, people communicated with each other. And when it all started, they could no longer leave their rooms. Those who are sick, isolated separately, others live only one by one, they are nailed to the bed. Those people also need human communication, communication. These are living and thinking people. Speaking, the stories of their lives are sometimes collected from clippings.

There was no question of what to do depends and what not.

– You are a dentist, you do not treat people with this or other similar diseases. And you not only had to find yourself in the focus of COVID, but also make decisions about human health. Not Afraid?

– I have been in constant contact with the head nurse of the residence. I was sick, but I consulted on the phone. So much so that she did not see the situation: I was in the patient, I was the person who is there and I were the hands that are doing what is needed. The situation was extraordinary. Like a battlefield.

– You say you went to give, but you got it yourself. What?

– An impulse. Not only to observe reality from the side, but also to take responsibility.

– I saw and received a thank you – a poem written by a resident of a nursing home.

– Yes, this is one of the population, she also had COVID-19 and recovered. A woman of respectable age, a former teacher of the Lithuanian language.

I kept going to her, asking her what she had heard on the radio today, what she had read. She used to create poetry and wrote a letter-poem as a thank you. The biggest emotional return is probably not being appreciated or noticed, but the fullness you feel where you are and what you do.

When you hold your grandmother’s hand and she keeps your hand tight and doesn’t let go, you realize that you are the only person who can be close. There will be no loved ones or anything else. This is the fullness you feel. And the feeling that you are where you need to be. That ain’t anywhere else membranes it could not be.

– How familiar are you with COVID-19?

– Because I know many doctors, I knew those who were infected, sick, sick. No one in my immediate environment was sick.

I have people around me who are quite skeptical. When I hear that skeptics should volunteer and see reality, I really don’t think they will. I think that man’s own relationship with himself and with the environment is broken, and that would not be a solution. You wouldn’t even choose to be there and volunteer because you are just an observer from the sidelines, observing, criticizing, and evaluating. But you will never find yourself in that reality. I won’t see how it is.

We are installed: do a good job in silence.

– Volunteers increasingly share their stories and experiences in public. Skeptics would say: and to whom, after all, good deeds are done quietly.

– When you wrote about the interview, I myself would not have thought that I needed to tell you more about it. We are installed: do a good job in silence. You really do those jobs and you do it quietly. The most important work takes place within you.

But even for me, reading an article on human volunteering, options, wakes me up. If you never saw an example, maybe you didn’t invent it yourself, you wouldn’t dare. When you see that it is real that all people can do it, you do it too.

– Your Advent makes sense, Eva.

– I identify myself as a Christian, and Christianity is a belief for me when you don’t create any positive illusion and you don’t live in the illusion. You live in reality as it is. And for me it is an incarnate faith.

The reality today is this. In its darkness you find the light.

Today’s reality is this. In its darkness you find the light. Sometimes you find so much more than what you choose to just watch from the sidelines and be noticed.

I would say that if you now answer the question of what Christmas is for you, put everything in its place. Christmas is not a mall, and you won’t need top-down commands or bans not to go there.

Anyone can respond to those needs that exist now. These weren’t the only nursing homes where volunteers were needed. We can find many places and closer to ourselves, in our cities and districts. Where the same help cries out. And if you have the opportunity, you can respond.