Last Call

I pushed the two Lego pieces together.

Click.

He loved that sound.

I saw him smile, his facial muscles still fully functional.

A Lego flower. The Super Mario Piranha Plant, to be precise.

People incessantly ask me why I started volunteering with palliative care patients.

I don’t know how to answer.

But, maybe, it’s that sound of the tiny ‘click’.

 Josh* was a collector.

He loved Legos. But, he never opened a single box, because their worth lay in their pristine status.

It was an investment.

And then he got ALS.

A man in his mid forties, sitting at Last Call, watching his muscles deteriorate day by day, his life a last sip at the bar.

And now all he wants to do is to f#$@k it all, rip open the boxes and build every Lego set that crowds the long-term-care room he’s grown to hate.

Except by the time he realized it was Last Call, his fingers no longer worked.

So here I am,

A volunteer.

I’m unsure what draws me to palliative care, but I know I belong here.

I’m somehow matched with this man, whose love for Legos equals my own dorky obsession.

Is it providence, fate, or the strangest Lego luck ever?

The funny thing is, while his boxes are pristinely organized in their collector status all around him, I don’t even know where my Lego boxes are.

I’d get a set as a kid, and even before saying ‘thank you’ I’d be ripping the box open to build it. That’s right. Ripping. Not opening nicely. There was no nice, classy opening where a new Lego set was involved.

As an adult, at some point I finally stopped trying to pretend I was buying Legos for my son, since I was forcing him to build them with me. Eventually, my husband realized I loved Legos more than jewellery, and now Santa knows it too.

 So, I got matched with Josh.

I visit him every week.

The box ripper and the box collector.

That first week when I came into his room, I stared at the mountains of unopened Lego boxes that he dragged with him to his room in the long-term-care home; A middle-aged man who had come in for a drink, only to realize it was his last one.

I asked as a joke, “Can I build them?”

And he stared at me, as if I had pushed Last Call back, just one more hour.

So, he picks the box. The Super Mario Piranha plant.

Not a major item. Just a small piece. To test me out.

Click.

He approves.

He stares in fascination and he says that he hopes I can get through at least four more boxes before Last Call ends.

So for now we are both here.

The Legos are the drink we share.

A start to conversations otherwise too strange to begin.

A ‘click’ for every hypothetical question I think of, and he oddly enjoys answering.

If they found a cure tomorrow morning, and you woke up the way you used to be, would you live your old life again? Or would you change routes?

I’d drive my truck, he says.

I loved driving.

I’d sell all my collections and buy my dream car, and I’d drive it across North America, then South. All the way to the southern-most tip of Argentina…but shit…I’d have to fly the car over Columbia. It’s not safe enough to drive through.

That’s ok. We check out the costs of shipping a car across Columbia. He can afford it if he sells his collections.

He smiles.

If they found a pill that gave you all your physical capabilities back for precisely one year, but then you would still die after, what would you do? 

“I would run,” he says.

Just run.

Feel my legs again.

Be Forrest F$%#ng Gump

And just run.

Until the last call.

You quit smoking. You told me you’d smoke till the end. So?

I fell in love, he says.

With a woman two doors down.

We’re sharing our last drink together, and I want it to last just a little bit longer. We’re not ready to say goodbye.

Click.

The flower is done.

Next box.

You'd never think your life could begin at Last Call.

This story is a true one, with small alterations, including the name of the patient.