CLEVELAND — Gene Branem likes visits with old friends. Today, he's visiting with the staff at the Hospice of the Western Reserve's David Simpson House.
With boxes of donuts in hand, he made his way up to the building. He's a thoughtful one, but more than anything, he's a grateful one.
"Hi How are you?" a nurse asked him.
Then, as he embraced two nurses, he burst into tears. "You're incredible," he told them.
You see, Gene's not just visiting old friends; he's visiting the nurses and staff here who cared for his wife, Judy, who passed away in March. He's here to say, "Thank you," and the nurses feel grateful, too.
"For you allowing us to take care of her, that's what means a lot to us," said Sherron Dotson-Sowell, a nurse at the David Simpson House.
Judy spent several weeks here. Losing her was hard.
"52 years. Got up every morning, drove to work together, drove home together, spent the day together, spent the night together," Gene said of his marriage to Judy. "She provided everything I could ever want and more, and you just couldn't help but love her. And I miss her so bad. Can't wait to see her."
In Judy's final days, Gene says the pain of losing her was unbearable. Yet, in his darkest hour, it was the staff who brought in the light.
"They would come in and ask me, 'Do you need anything? What can I get for you?' All day, every day, they'd work 12-hour shifts, these nurses," Gene said, through tears. "Like Tammy. She checked us in. That's why we got so close, and she would come in and just brush Judy's hair back out of her face. She'd brush her teeth. She hugged me."
Working in hospice is not for the faint of heart. For the nurses here, it's a delicate dance of medical care, compassion, and the understanding of our most complex emotion: grief.
Sherron has worked in this field for a decade. She didn't choose it; it chose her.
"Actually, nursing is my second career," she said. "Taking care of my grandparents all my life; they both have passed on. So that's where the love and caring [came from]. My mother still, to this day, says, 'You were supposed to be a nurse.'"
At 40 years old, Sherron left her job as an interior designer and went to school to be a nurse. It's the best decision she's ever made.
"You know, we give from our heart here. This is really, really tough, dealing with the different emotions," she said. "We want to be positive, we want to be supportive with our families, but it has to come from here [in your heart], so if your passion leads to compassion, then you're in the right place.
"And so I just feel ... I'm just ... this is it. This is where I'm supposed to be right now."
For Gene, Sherron and her team are angels among us, who are comforting the fighters and caring for the survivors.
"They're such a blessing," he said. "They don't just do nurse stuff; they do heart stuff. I cannot possibly honor them the way they should be."
In one final hug, Sherron told Gene, "Thank you. Love right back at you. Love and appreciation. Love and appreciation to you."
As another way to show his appreciation, Gene is advocating for families to donate their unused medical supplies. He was able to donate some of his hermetically sealed drain kits to the hospice centers.