[dropcap letter="C"]
armen Horcajuelo says that when she arrived at the San José Institute Foundation in Madrid, her husband had been battling terminal cancer for some time, and she was as exhausted as she was heartbroken. However, thanks to the psychosocial care teams (EAPS) of the center's palliative care unit, both finally found rest. "It's a place with great hospitality," Carmen tells us. "The entire team is very close and they welcome people as if they were a big family. That helps a lot."
There, Carmen's husband enjoyed his last fifteen days taking walks, attending music therapy sessions, and receiving care from the entire medical unit and its volunteers. With these needs covered, Carmen gained time to dedicate herself completely to the most essential thing: being with him and accompanying him until the end.
Supported by the Program for Comprehensive Care for People with Advanced Illnesses of "la Caixa" Social Work and distributed in centers throughout the territory, the EAPS offer all kinds of support to people who are at the end of their lives and their families. One of their services is grief counseling offered by psychologists. It goes without saying that there are as many different ways of experiencing a grieving process as there are people, but, in Carmen's case, it consisted mainly of learning to put everything in its place. "There's a little spot in your heart where that person will always be and will never escape from," she says, "but you also have to find your own space to be happy and keep living."
That happiness, Carmen found in gratitude. A week after her husband passed away, she returned to the San José Institute Foundation: this time, to sign up as a volunteer and be able to do for others what they had done for her. "At first, every day I left there wondering how I could be so happy," she recalls, thinking about her first days as a volunteer, now five years ago.
Since then, Carmen has been in charge of programming movies in the center's EspacioCaixa, where residents enjoy leisure time and coexistence. She also talks a lot with them and, above all, "I give them all my affection and love, and I give out lots of kisses," she affirms. Perhaps it is true what that poet once said: "If nothing frees us from death, at least may love save us from life."
Text: Patri de Filippo Illustration: Ricardo Macía
You can read more stories like these in ALMA, the social social network, a digital space dedicated to the social sphere that brings a new perspective to the present and future of society, based on an optimistic and diverse voice, and all the initiatives promoted by the "la Caixa" Social Project.