An unfiltered lens of his grandmother’s life

by Andrea Powell, HPCCR Electronic Communications Manager

Don’t you wonder sometimes if coincidences are really coincidences after all?  When certain outcomes and turns of events come together in a way that are almost too perfect to believe?  Kind of makes you think that it’s actually divine guidance at work.

That’s the mentality that Amit Patel, HPCCR volunteer, is coming around to after his recent experience with one of our patients.  Little did he know, before making the introductory phone call, that meeting this patient would provide answers to many of his childhood questions. 

Amit’s mother and maternal grandparents come from the state of Gujarat, on India’s west coast.  Amit grew up in the U.S. but never met his grandmother because she died before she had the chance to immigrate to the States.  He always wondered about his grandmother but never knew much about her because his mother would become emotional when he’d ask questions as a child.  Eventually, he stopped asking.  But he never stopped wondering.

So when he was assigned to Pramoda, a patient who knew his grandmother, Amit was shocked.  Turns out, Pramoda’s mother was friends with Amit’s grandmother back in India and Pradmoda herself had spent time with his grandmother too.  All of a sudden, he was given the perfect opportunity to to ask questions about this woman he never knew.  And if that wasn’t amazing enough, he realized that, through learning about his grandmother, he was gaining insight about his own mother too.  Now he better understood her quirks, her habits, her rituals; a genetic code revealing itself a little bit more each visit.  After hearing the stories from Pramoda’s family, he was now seeing his mother through the unfiltered lens of his grandmother’s life.

A few important things had to happen for this story to come together the way it did.  Amit’s family had to immigrate to this part of North Carolina.  Pramoda’s family had to immigrate to this part of North Carolina too.  The families had to know each other in India.  Amit, who has had no previous experience with hospice, had to decide to volunteer with HPCCR.  And then he had to be assigned that specific patient who knew his grandmother back in India.  Coincidence or divine guidance?  You decide.

Explore posts in the same categories: awareness, end of life, hospice, long-term care, volunteering

Tags: coincidence, divine guidance, Gujarat, Hospice & Palliative Care Charlotte Region, hospice care, India, volunteerism

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