It was after midnight on Good Friday. My wife and I were following the ambulance that carried her father. There was no rush and no need for a siren. The wet streets hissed below us. We talked little, perhaps trying to avoid that which we both were thinking, that this would be the last time Ben would ever be home again.

After a brief maze of one way streets, we eventually emptied out on the Boulevard, heading east, past the procession of stately homes that appeared dreamlike in the darkness and in the rain that had started up again. And there was the river to our right, the ceaseless green ventricle that flowed beneath us in the dark, whose surface glistened with streaks and columns and fanning plumes of colored light, that moved as we moved, that seemed to put an end to the panic, an end to the fury and the desperation of the last hour. By the time we reached the first turn near the Moose Lodge, the night had given back to us a stillness and a peace that we did not have to explain. The rain too, seemed kinder, softer, having lost an indifference that I had detected earlier.

In the coal blackness of that night there was perhaps no way to appreciate the view after we turned off the boulevard and made the necessary turns to begin our ascent. Our minds were occupied with something just as dark and brooding, unsure. The night itself seemed to read our minds, to complement our thoughts and yet did not mock our sense of helplessness. As we turned onto Kennawa, I could see the massive leaning wall, the wet, bleeding, proud and shining rock to our left, its stout dark wing bending above us, like the great entrance, the great mouth of heaven.

A mist had put a veil over the remainder of the mountain and hid something beautiful from us. There was naked rock to our immediate left, then to our right, its scarred face softened with mist. Because of the slope and the sharpness of the turns, the climb could not be made swiftly by any light.

The whole thing was not unlike a dream. But the sight of the ambulance with its silent pulses of red and yellow light and the thought of the task still before us brought us gently back. We had embarked on a mystery. We had not come this way before and we did not know what to expect. But three curves in the road and a miles journey upward eventually brought us to the summit, and to THE HUBBARD HOSPICE HOUSE. The valley, now a world away and a distance below us, was strewn with twinklings of jeweled light. As we rounded the grove of trees, the last natural partition between ourselves and the house, a warm and charitable light glowed soft in the brief distance before us. In a weeks time Ben would be gone from us. This was but the dark and misty door.

The Paramedics and a team of nurses and medical staff made the transition from the ambulance to a private room. They were expedient and deliberate, swift and thorough in their mysterious work, but not without gentleness to the dying man. There was very little sound, just the muted shuffling of feet and a quiet exchange of voices. This was an easy place to be. A soft and amiable light burned warm in its heart. Those who greeted Benita and me were kind and helpful. We were made at once to feel at home. The staff, with an authority that was tender and attentive, did much to disarm our uneasiness and to answer those initial and overriding questions that we could not bring ourselves to ask.

There are twelve private rooms spread over one long corridor. Ben was assigned to #8. In his room was a bed, a couple of chairs, an entertainment center with a TV, and a large ample bathroom with a shower. A large window looked out on a peaceful landscape. The lamps in the room cast a soft amber light, not unlike the familiar light of home. There was a comfortable leather reclining chair and a large sofa.

We spent that first night in the room with Ben (which was encouraged by the staff). Benita slept on the recliner. Since her father’s illness she had slept little anyway. I slept on the sofa. It was late and my brain was as misted as the night and I’m sure someone probably told me that the thing folded out into a bed, but I must have missed it. I spent that first night in an almost comical counterfeit of pseudosleep, endlessly twisting, and making unheard declarations into an impossibly tiny pillow, and on a squeaky plot of new leather that was just shy of the length I needed.

But his room was spacious. Family could gather around him comfortably and privately and were encouraged to do so. For this was the golden turnstile, the platform, the exiting place, a miles journey upward and a world away.

Ben was here for one reason. The cancer had come to its final limits, to the inevitable wall. The only mystery that remained was time. We knew where. And he now needed the final measure of care that only hospice could give. We were a part of the process and were sharing something precious with people who seemed, in an instant, incapable of remaining strangers to us. It was something in them that went beyond training. It was more of a calling, identified by a kindness that I recognized in them, and a profound respect for life, a respect that permeated everything. It was OK to feel things here.

This was a dying place, it’s what Ben was here for, and yet I don’t believe I could have found a place where life was held to be more valuable. There was a nakedness of spirit here that was protected. The other families, here for the same reasons as we, showed a friendly and unrestrained willingness to accept us, the newly initiated, into this grand fellowship.

We hadn’t been there long before we met Ginger, a canine inhabitant of the place, a brown furry creature who had wandered there from some unknown somewhere, who came to us with an inquisitiveness and with an indifference peculiar to her species. After a brief inspection and what appeared to be approval, we had made a new friend. She was like the mascot of the place, a warm and friendly living fixture, whose presence added a measure of something unknown and yet necessary to the house.

There was a large kitchen in the middle of the long corridor, that glistened with rich reflections of oak and appliance white, of shining glass and convenience, that had been furnished with the best new appointments and fixtures. Two stoves, a double oven, a large refrigerator and freezer, microwave ovens, and an industrial size but user friendly coffee brewer. There was more than ample shelf space. Each private room had their own assigned space in the cabinets where personal food items could be stored and protected.

The kitchen extended into a larger, more casual room. There were tables for games or for dining, festive and homelike. There was a large leather sofa, a couple of soft chairs, cable TV, games, and a VCR. It was spacious and comfortable and like no waiting room I had known. There was nothing clinical about the light. Death and dying happened here and yet the personality of the place said something altogether different. It returned something back to you. And again there was Ginger, who softly and quietly loped about, anywhere she pleased.

From this same room there was a large window, looking to the north. The landscape outside this window was unlike any that was seen from other sides of the complex, a rare display of nature, undefiled and unkempt, unspoiled by anything manmade (save one heavily trafficked bird feeder that seemed to hold my wife’s attention with each new bird). Unmanicured grasses and dense thickets, wild and jubilant, the stark and untamed beauty of earth, as if it were something we had forgotten, something that must be remembered. It was a view shared by most of the 12 private rooms, including Ben’s.

To the west was a courtyard with three small islands, little mounds of manicured grass, knolls of rich green in a small peaceful sea of concrete, that served as a walkway. On one of the islands was a single chair that faced east. On another was a bench, facing the same direction. There was one birdhouse and one bird feeder. The little place suggested a pleasant solitude, not a gathering place but a place to sit quietly alone before the sun or the evening sky, a place to think, to drift, to be lulled by the stillness or by the quiet murmur of the mountaintop.

To the rear of this little retreat was a poetic architecture of wood, glass, and sand, an arc shaped formation that spanned most of the area, that cradled it in its great palm with five rigid and upright fingers. Within each of the five tall wooden rectangular frames was a formation of leaves made of cut glass, each panel blending together to form a single vision, like a canvas divided into five separate parts.

The artwork reflected a natural procession, life in its parts, the interdependence of its stages, distinctly separate and yet joined, linked by the inevitability and the unity of life. It suggested completeness, a wholeness, natural, divine, finished and yet, an ellipsis, a continuing... The leaves made me think of stained glass as in a holy place.

Within the center of the complex, at its heart, was a small chapel. Soft quiet light, stillness, and an unlocked door. It was available to those of all faiths and to those who had none. It was equipped with the necessary articles for a service, if one were requested by a family. A pulpit. An electronic piano. Song books. Candles. Bibles and other holy books. There were items of religious art, but an inclusive type of art, that denied no one, free of agenda.

To the front of the complex (the eastern face) there was ample parking. To the south, the winding road that brought us here, that hid from us the grandeur of the mountain on that first night. A government building in the distance was the only other tenant on this peak.

I write this in the hope that THE HUBBARD HOSPICE HOUSE will get the attention it deserves and maybe the support. Also, to let you know that just to the east of town, there is a light upon a hill, a warm and uncomplicated, inviting light, an inevitable and enduring light, suspended between heaven and earth. Humanity at its best, in its highest expression of itself.

Benjamin Adam Toney died on Friday, April 5, 2002 in room #8. He had been given a noble bed in which to die. He died in a quiet afternoon. At his bedside were his daughters Ramona, Donna, and Benita. Shad, our 16 year old son, was also with them. Having lost my own father just the year before, and seeing Ben slip into the pattern I recognized too well, I chose not to be with them in those last moments. I busied myself with errands, some necessary, some invented. Up and down the mountain, across town and back again, maddened by silence and daylight.

In my place was our new canine friend. She had been in the room for some time, hardly noticed, at the foot of his bed, as if it were natural for her to be there, as if keeping an angelic watch over him. Ginger, like the very spirit of the place, quiet, watchful, accepting, and kind to the last.

The girls had but a week to prepare, a long week, a lifetime perhaps. Before I close, it is worth mentioning that THE HUBBARD HOSPICE HOUSE helped them with things they could not have prepared for, and not just the death and dying, but also things that would continue after death, and not just emotional, but practical and legal things. There was a store of information available to complete the awkward process, and a skill and sensitivity to facilitate it.

Still, there was something beautiful that was allowed to slowly unveil and in its natural course, as daylight upon the mountain. They could let go of their father. They could witness his quiet departure from this life, on this high and hallowed ground, far above the noise, above the indifference, and above the traffic of the streets below.