Pete O'Reilly remembers the first time he walked into Crossroads Hospice in 2003, the culmination of some 20 years of hospice work throughout the Tri-Cities and beyond.
"To come off that elevator and walk into this warm, absolutely beautiful place, you couldn't take the smile off my face," he recalled. "I was absolutely beaming."
O'Reilly, who used to work in the automotive business, had started doing hospice work as part of a loose network of volunteers in the 1980s. They were trained at All Saints Catholic Church in Coquitlam and dispatched to visit with dying patients as far away as Mission, either in hospitals or in their homes.
By 1987, the volunteers wanted to firm up their status and the following year, the Crossroads Hospice Society was registered as a non-profit society. The name Crossroads, and the accompanying signpost logo, were chosen to identify the communities the society served - the Tri-Cities as well as Anmore, Belcarra and New Westminster.
O'Reilly had sold his business and was asked to work for the society on a short-term basis to recruit board members and co-ordinate volunteers. He retired 17 years later.
"That job, especially in the early years, entailed anything and everything," O'Reilly said. "In a hospice setting, you're supporting the people dying but you're also supporting their family and friends, you're supporting the staff, you're counselling.
"That was one of the things that initially scared me, the counselling, and I thought, 'Not a chance.' But I did a lot of it over the years."
And as Crossroads Hospice Society celebrates its 25th anniversary (the hospice building is marking its 10th birthday), O'Reilly looked back at a quarter-century of providing caring support to local families facing the loss of a loved one.
"People say, 'You must get depressed or sad,'" O'Reilly said. "Are there sad times? Yes, there has to be. But you get close to people, they're almost like family. And the happy times far outweigh the sad times.
"There have just been so many good people... and so many volunteers don't get acknowledged. They put their heart and soul into Crossroads Hospice, and that's why it is where it is today."
Where Crossroads is? It's now an organization that boasts more than 300 volunteers, most of whom continue to visit with patients in the hospice, at Eagle Ridge and Royal Columbian hospitals and in people's homes.
Janice Hansen, Crossroads' programs manager, started as a volunteer in 1999. The prospect of working with patients so close to the end of their lives never concerned her; rather, she was eager to be helping those savouring their last moments.
"I always liked that fairy godmother piece of what we can do here to make that better, to make that raw time a little easier," Hansen said. "It's just a privilege to say, 'How can we make this as meaningful as we can for patients and their families?'"
They do that through any number of programs, including pet therapy, art carts to make memory boxes, a garden, alternative therapies like Reiki, spiritual care, music therapy and bereavement services.
"It was so grassroots at the beginning," Hansen said. "But the community just embraced us and we've grown so much."
Crossroads is celebrating its 25th anniversary this spring with a public art project led by local artist Tammy Pilon and Grade 10 and 11 students from Gleneagle secondary. The large-scale work will be unveiled in June at the Crossroads Thrift Store in Coquitlam. Visit www.crossroadshospice.bc.ca for more information.
