INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — During group counseling for grief at the Visiting Nurse Association Hospice, George Rooney decided what he wanted his future to be: He would work for free for the VNA – find a way to use his engineering skills to help.
“I had never volunteered for anything before,” he said. “But you never know what life will bring to change you.”
In 2001, he and his wife, Linda, moved to Vero Beach from Maine for reasons many people make this their permanent home. His mother was here and winters are beautiful.
He got a job as an engineer for the U.S. Army in Rockledge, and Linda cared for his mother.
On weekends, they went out to eat and to movies, and they took vacations back North to see their grandchildren.
“Linda and I had a great life in spite of me,” said George, who, in retrospect, sees himself as “somewhat self-centered.”
In January 2010, Linda, a 4’11”, 90-pound blonde, started having pain in her mouth, which was diagnosed as an aggressive cancer of the tongue.
A few months later, surgeons at Shands in Gainesville removed her tongue, teeth and most of her gums.
When she was well enough to walk, the couple went out to dinner, as they had always done.
“She watched me eat at our favorite place,” said George. “She wrote me notes on a pad.”
A month later, Linda was in speech therapy and could make herself understood with a few words.
The couple began to adjust and have a fairly normal life.
But a few months after surgery, they learned the cancer had spread to Linda’s lungs, and nothing could be done.
On Aug. 28, 2011, the couple drove to VNA Hospice on 37th St. in Vero Beach for Linda to check in.
On the way there, George told himself that nothing could be more sad and dreary.
But when the couple arrived, they were pleasantly surprised to find a sprawling Caribbean-styled home with a tin roof on a beautifully landscaped lot. A stream of koi meandered through.
The interior looked like a five-star hotel.
Linda’s room had a private porch looking out on a stream and even the hospital bed was a replica of an antique spool bed. But what most impressed George was the kindness of the staff.
“Not somber or overly cheerful,” he said. “Just real and thoughtful.”
He reeled off the names he remembered: “Janice, Diane, Susan and Sonia – they got Linda and me through it,” he said.
He saved the notes Linda wrote to their two grown children from her hospital bed.
“Boy, I sure wish I could stay around,” she penned in neat cursive on a pad. “But I’ll love you always, and I’ll always be with you.”
She died Sept. 10. George began group bereavement therapy at VNA Hospice a month later.
“You listen to other people talk about the most personal, painful things and you realize you’re not alone,” he said.
One of the things George, 65, shared with the group:
“I see couples my age and older out doing things – anything from shopping at Publix, to eating dinner to taking a walk, and I’m so envious because they still have each other,” he said.
He told his bereavement group that he feared he was too sad to go on.
The conclusion they helped him come to: “I had an obligation to continue for my remaining family and friends.
“I needed to get out of myself and help people.”
At first, he volunteered at the VNA office, figuring out how to streamline tracking charts in the computer.
He stuffed envelopes, answered phones and organized post-surgery care instruction manuals in the computer.
“Who knew there were so many ostomies,” he said.
Tracey Kendrick, VNA communications manager, said everyone at the VNA knows Rooney because he has spent so much time volunteering over the past year.
“We love George Rooney here,” she said.
A few months ago, when the VNA opened Hidden Treasures, a consignment store in Sebastian, he found a tailor-made volunteer job.
George has a workshop in the back of the store, past the neatly pressed jeans, tropical shirts and antique teacups.
He uses his electronic training as an engineer to make sure the appliances, computers and electronic equipment work.
On his shop counter a few days ago, he had a DVD, a hair dryer and a fax machine.
For sale in the store are stereos, camcorders, TVs, printers and even irons he has worked on.
Four days a week, from about 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., he’s at his volunteer job.
Not only is he there because of Linda and VNA Hospice, he said, he’s also there as a cancer survivor himself.
For 12 years, he has been free of melanoma.
“I’m alive. I’m with good people and I’m helping out,” he said. “For this, I’m very thankful.”
