When I was in seventh grade, I was a candy striper at a local hospital in my town. I volunteered1 about thirty to forty hours a week during the summer. Most of the time I spent there was with Mr. Gillespie. He never had any visitors, and nobody seemed to care about his condition. I spent many days there holding his hand and talking to him, helping with anything that needed to be done. He became a close friend of mine, even though he responded with only an occasional squeeze2 of my hand. Mr. Gillespie was in a coma3.
I left for a week to vacation with my parents, and when I came back, Mr. Gillespie was gone. I didn’t have the nerve to ask any of the nurses where he was, f