Mr. Buchwald Leaves Hospice to Come Home

By ART BUCHWALD
Special to the Vineyard Gazette

During the period when I had a lot of time to think I spent a lot of
time thinking about the Vineyard.

SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/07/14/content/art_buchwald_1_sm.jpg"
WIDTH="180" HEIGHT="266"
ALT="Photo" BORDER="2" ALIGN="right"
VSPACE="6" HSPACE="6">

It's part of my life and has been for the last 45 years. I
came here in 1961 and rented a house from Dr. Strock the dentist. Then
after five years of renting different places, I finally bought my own
home on Main street in Vineyard Haven. I live on what we call
writer's row - John Hersey, Bill Styron, Mike Wallace,
Lillian Hellman, and others. We even purchased cemetery plots together.

We ignored Chilmark and the thing we bragged about the most was that
we refused to go anywhere on the Island where we needed a map.

In many ways the Vineyard is more my home than Washington, D.C.
There are as many crazy people here as there are in Washington, but at
least we can say that they're our people.

SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/07/14/content/art_buchwald_2_sm.jpg"
WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="133"
ALT="Photo" BORDER="2" ALIGN="right"
VSPACE="6" HSPACE="6">

I am surprised but happy that I have a chance to say it again
- you can take me out of the Vineyard, but you can't take
the Vineyard out of me.

This is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm winding up
nearly five months of living in a hospice.

The purpose of the hospice is to help you go gently into the night
when all else fails. You are supposed to do it with as little pain as
possible and with dignity.

It didn't work out that way for me. I will not go into the
details of why I stayed there this long and why I left. Most people who
enter a hospice depart by a different door than the one they came in.
There were 14 beds in my hospice, and the average time a person spends
there is two to three weeks.

SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/07/14/content/art_buchwald_3_sm.jpg"
WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="133"
ALT="Photo" BORDER="2" ALIGN="right"
VSPACE="6" HSPACE="6">

The irony of my stay is that word got out that I refused dialysis (a
form of saving your kidneys) and probably didn't have long to
live.

The fact that I was in a hospice and people could come visit me
anytime they wanted made it a happening.

Hospices have never gotten much attention, because people relate
them to death. People are afraid of the mystery of death. Relatives and
friends are initially afraid to visit.

It's a whole different ball game from anything else in a
person's life.

While in the hospice, I have had visitors from all walks of life. I
suspect one of the reasons was that the hospice was centrally located
and people came to see me after they bought flowers at nearby
Johnson's florist shop.

SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/07/14/content/art_buchwald_4_sm.jpg"
WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="133"
ALT="Photo" BORDER="2" ALIGN="right"
VSPACE="6" HSPACE="6">

Women were the most moved. The thing that kept them going was that I
was always upbeat. I knew I was getting into something very serious, but
I didn't want my friends to worry.

My hospice is very special. It has a large living room where
families can hang out while their loved one, in almost all cases,
remains in bed. Some patients stayed for days and others for weeks, but
the bottom line was, we weren't going to be around very long.

People took a lot of interest in what was going on, first with me,
then with the hospice as a whole. We celebrated birthdays here and fed
the goldfish. There was no reason the fish had to die just because I was
going to.

Of course, people want to talk about death if you give them
permission. I always give people permission to discuss it. I discovered
it made them very happy to be able to share fears and questions about
dying.

During the past five months, people kept asking me, "What is
it like to die?"

SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/07/14/content/art_buchwald_5_sm.jpg"
WIDTH="180" HEIGHT="271"
ALT="Photo" BORDER="2" ALIGN="right"
VSPACE="6" HSPACE="6">

I answered, "I don't know, because I haven't died.
I thought I was going to, but then something changed."

Instead of going straight upstairs, I came to Martha's
Vineyard. I doubt that people will be that interested in me here.

I had such a good time at the hospice. I am going to miss it.

I don't know how long I'll be around, but I do think I
won't be in a hospice this summer. If nothing else, I made an
awful lot of people happy.

Dying isn't hard. Getting paid by Medicaid is.

Art Buchwald plans to return to the Martha's Vineyard
Community Services Possible Dreams auction this year, where he will
again take the podium as auctioneer. The auction is on August 7.