Life is full of little miracles.
Just ask Joy McCall.
When she was 15 years old, she pedaled her bicycle over to a neighbor’s house to catch a glimpse of the new man in town. He went by the name of Mac and had a guitar on his lap and the best personality ever.
All the girls in church adored him, and he was the man of her dreams.
Years later, Joy married that man, but not before an ocean had separated them for five long years while Mac fought in World War II and recovered from a wound he sustained during the Battle of the Bulge.
Mac built a small home for his new bride that was nestled near a grove of trees beside her family’s homestead, the one that had been in the Spratt family for 200 years. When the new airport came to town, Joy and Mac lost their home and relocated from the outskirts of Charlotte to the farm home in Ellerbe where Mac grew up.
They raised their three children there, and Mac became a board member of Pee Dee Electric. That enabled him to take his family on travels to California, Georgia, Louisiana and other far away places.
Later in life, the family’s situation changed again when Mac and Joy’s 23-year-old son, Clifton, died in an electrical accident on a Georgia farm. They held a closed-casket funeral for the son who had a college degree in agriculture and had recently asked his girlfriend to marry him.
“The hardest part for me was not getting to say goodbye,” says Joy.
Clifton’s death was one of those unexpected things in life for which neither Joy nor her husband could have prepared. They knew, however, that one day, one or the other of them would be left alone and that they would have to prepare for that day.
“After we lost our son, we talked about death, made our funeral plans and had a power of attorney and a living will,” says Joy.
Still, nothing prepared Joy for the emotions she felt during the last days of Mac’s life.
“Mac started with the hiccups on the way to the beach,” she says. “The minute we got back, he started seeing one doctor after another to try and find out what in the world was the matter. It boiled down to the fact that Mac was already into the third stage of cancer, which only has four stages, before we knew he was sick at all.”
By the time, at age 78, that Mac was diagnosed with lung cancer, the disease had already spread to his lymph nodes.
The intensive radiation and chemotherapy he received caused an infection in his digestive tract, and he spent three weeks on a feeding tube at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital. His condition worsened, and he lost nearly 12 pints of blood from a hemorrhage.
Then a miracle happened. The hemorrhaging stopped, and Mac – although 50 pounds lighter – was able to go home again.
“We left the hospital and went home with FirstHealth Hospice, a hospital bed and an aide and the nurse,” says Joy. “We really needed them, because I couldn’t handle everything by myself. Our children lived out of town – our son, a pharmacist in Charlotte, and our daughter, an executive in Love Valley near Statesville.”
Mac’s Hospice team provided him with the care he needed and helped Joy cope with the emotional stress. Then he died – for the first time.
“He died in his chair at home while the Hospice nurse was there,” says Joy. “I was sitting in the other easy chair beside him when his head dropped, and he slumped over.”
The nurse indicated that his heart had stopped. But, Joy says, Mac miraculously opened his eyes as though nothing had happened.
His heart needed work, however, so he returned to the hospital, this time under the care of a cardiologist.
Year Passes
An entire year would pass before the McCalls would need Hospice again.
“He had a good year,” Joy says. “That is a miracle. We traveled around. He picked blueberries, and we visited the children. We had our little holiday get-togethers at home, compared to the Thanksgiving before when the kids brought dinner up to us in the hospital.”
When Mac’s hiccups returned around Christmas in 1999, Hospice was there, says Joy.
“Hospice came in and helped us like they did the first time,” she says. “I can’t say enough good things about Hospice, because they’re there when you need them. When you dial 215-6000, they’ll help you day and night.”
Hospice continued to provide medical care for Mac until he died in his home on March 1, 2000.
To cope with the death of the man she had loved for more than half a century, Joy began attending FirstHealth Hospice’s Bereavement Program.
“The people I see when we have our lunches at Hospice have similar experiences that are also different,” she says. “We all share a loss. The beauty of us getting together is talking about the things that we’ve experienced so we know that we’re really OK. It helps you not to think only about your own problems. I can count my blessings that I had 54 years with Mac, because you have to look at the positive and know that you’re going to get through it. You might backslide a little bit, but you’re going to make progress.”
A few months ago, Joy gathered with her Bereavement Program friends, as she often does, and celebrated the first anniversary of Mac’s death.
“Of course, anniversaries are always hard – Clifton and Mac’s,” she says. “It’s not unusual to feel sad on anniversaries, and it’s not just me who feels that way. Other people feel that way, too.”
On the days that Joy really misses Mac, she opens the closet door, smells his clothes or wraps herself in one of his wool shirts, and reminisces by the fireplace.
Other days, she writes about all the “little miracles” she’s experienced in life in a journal given to her by Tina Markoff, FirstHealth Hospice Family Services Coordinator.
“Tina told me to take time to grieve,” says Joy. “You get so many sweet little blessings along the way – little miracles. I’ve been trying to write down a few of those real miracles that happen around us every day.”
When she wakes up in the morning, she still misses the man she loved for most of her life and continues to love, but she can rejoice in the day and be glad in it. And she can pass that feeling on to her family and the friends she’s made through Hospice’s Bereavement Program.
Hospice Bereavement Program
Grief is one of the major contributors to loss of employment, family problems and depression.
“Hospice recognizes the importance of grieving and has developed programs to assist those dealing with the loss of a loved one,” Markoff says. “The FirstHealth Hospice Bereavement Program serves friends and family members for one year in a variety of ways. A unique aspect of our bereavement services is that they are open to anyone in the community who has suffered a loss due to death, all at no cost.”
FirstHealth Hospice offers the following programs for adults who have experienced the loss of a loved one: the Caring Support Group, which meets monthly; a seven-session program called New Beginnings; a Grief Support Series that is held in sessions of four in the evenings; and Devoured by the Beast, a group specifically designed for men.
FirstHealth Hospice also offers Camp Lost & Found for children and teenagers, ages 5- 17. Lost & Found provides grief education in a comfortable summer camp setting that involves children and youth in recreational activities. Other groups for children and teenagers are offered as needed.
In addition, FirstHealth Hospice provides individualized counseling led by specially trained grief counselors and social workers and provides the public with grief literature that can be sent in the mail or checked out at Hospice’s lending library in Pinehurst.
Licensed social workers and registered nurses provide services through Caregiving Connections, an ongoing educational group that offers support to anyone who is presently caring for a loved one with a chronic or terminal illness.
To learn more about services provided by FirstHealth Hospice, call (910) 215-6000 for Moore County information, (919) 774-4169 for Lee County information and (toll free) 1-866-861-7485 for Montgomery County information.
For information about volunteer opportunities or giving to FirstHealth Hospice, contact The Hospice Foundation at (910) 695-7500.
Shelley Martin works in FirstHealth’s Corporate Communications Department.
