Is it possible to die with a smile on your face?
Some people want to smoke a joint before they die because they have never done it before. Others take an ambulance to the seaside to feel the sand under their feet and the smell of the sea breeze once again, for the last time. Or they go to the hairdresser to do a trial hairstyle for the coffin. Not for prom. Not for the wedding. To the coffin.
– I wanted to jump with a parachute. The nurse grabbed her head: “Are you crazy?! Your lungs will burst!” – says Krzysiek. And he says it with a laugh. Before she leaves, 75-year-old Krysia wants to see her younger son get married. And a smile on his face.
They are both patients of the oncology hospice in Bramki.
Everyone here has their own dreams and things to do. Everyone knows what awaits them in the near future.
Ania, hospice volunteer: – We have a room here where the body of the deceased is transported immediately after death. In the summer, when it was so hot, we laughed that we could sleep there. Because there's a bed there and it's just colder.
– And no one snores – adds Krzysiek.
I listen and become more and more amazed. I will smile while writing a text about death.
***
On the way to the Gates, I pass fields of dried grain, a wooden cross, white brick houses, but also those indistinguishable gray, plastered blocks. I pull into the parking lot. A one-story building with a red roof appears in front of me.
First of all, I ask volunteer Ania Ostrowska if maybe I should wear a protective mask so as not to infect the hospice patients. – We don't wear any masks. However, we drink a lot of coffee, smoke cigarettes and eat sweets. So basically we do everything that people suffering from cancer should not do – he replies.
She once had her own confectionery workshop. Today, she still uses her old skills and bakes meringue cakes for hospice residents. She is the longest-serving volunteer and loved by Bramek's patients. – Whenever I go on holiday, I tell them: “When I come back, everyone should be here.”
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