Meeting Issan

Tobias Trapp asked me to write a few words about volunteering during the AIDS epidemic for the German magazine, Ursache & Wirkung. I jumped at the chance because it gave me an opportunity to acknowledge Frank Ostaseski and his pioneering work with the Zen Hospice Project as well as Issan Dorsey Roshi who founded Maitri Hospice. It also gave me an opportunity to encourage others to accept the invitation to be with another human being at the end of their lives, something that sadly our fears stand in the way of. 

In 1989 I lost a very dear friend, Nancy Storm, who’d been like a mother to me. Her daughter Mary asked me to donate the hospital bed that she had in her room at the Heritage Retirement Home in San Francisco where she’d spent the last years of her life. 

I still remember that the more established hospice care facilities refused donations unless it had a warranty. In the late 90’s, there were sometimes 100 men a week dying in San Francisco from HIV. Surely someone could use a hospital bed. I began to feel that I had to do something to help.

Then through an odd series of phone calls, Curtis Mann, a gay friend who was doing design work for the Zen Hospice Project gave me Frank’s number. Could the Hospice use the bed? Frank said he’d love to have the bed though work on the building was not complete. How could we move it across town? I had a truck. Frank said let’s meet and be delivery men. We set a time. 

I liked Frank immediately, bright, up beat, not my picture of a deathbed priest. He was also very persuasive--between the time we’d loaded the bed in my truck and unloaded it at the Zen Center, I was signed up for the Zen Hospice Volunteer Training Program. 

That afternoon also set the tone for volunteering, listening and responding to simple requests, taking care of what was at hand, and working with others. No special knowledge was required.  

Within 6 months, I’d also met Issan, and became a volunteer at Maitri Hospice. 

Guided by Issan’s  compassion, I cooked spaghetti and painted walls, I helped men sort through a lifetime of personal letters and called their mothers. Taking care of almost 100 men changed me. Not every task was easy, but the rewards were immense. 

I could not have known that this simple trip would lead to the first Buddhist Hospice for people with HIV/AIDS. I was just helping a man carry a bed across San Francisco. Thank you Frank, Issan, J.D., Bernie and the other men who came into my life. Your gifts were amazing.