Such a pleasant sounding word. Evocative of a bucolic inn surrounded by fields of flowers.
And rightfully so:
hospice (n.)
1818, "rest house for travelers," from French hospice (13c.), from Latin hospitium "guest house, hospitality," from hospes (genitive hospitis) "guest, host" (see host (n.1)).
Sense of "home for the aged and terminally ill " is from 1893;
hospice movement first attested 1979.
A place to rest. They are most likely called spas today if they started before the 1890's.
But I came out before antiretrovirals or even AZT. To me the word hospice is not someplace one goes to get well, it is where one goes to die. Out of twenty people in one city I remember going to hospice only one lasted two months. The rest were measured in days.
This is while the President on down tells us all that it is our own fault for being Queer. Regardless of our sexual proclivities. "God's Punishment" was oft claimed as justification to not halt the disease or even look into why. I call it the plague because I could have breakfast with someone in the morning find out they had gotten the flu that afternoon and find out the next day they had died in the night. These were people my age, my friends, and suddenly as if an alien had beamed them away they were gone. Most would linger but normally two weeks was a long time.
When I read the words "is going to hospice" these memories just flood my brain. Kids wanting to find their future suddenly reduced to ailing shadows of themselves.
I'm more likely to not have a prolonged passing. So hospice will be doubtful in my future, but how many will I have to see pass through those doors?
Sharing because it made me feel good when I found it: