MY HOPE STORY
Finding Peace
Rose and Helmut Mamsch lived what anyone would consider a charmed life. With houses in Germany, Spain and the United States, they traveled for both business and pleasure and had friends all over the world. Rose, an American and an opera singer when younger, entered the international textile business and was quite successful. Helmut was German and an executive in international business, on the board of a company trading in steel.
They met while Rose was in her last year of music education in Romania, and for many years, they enjoyed the fruits of their labors.
Then came Friday, August 4, 2017.
They had spent “a nice day—no rain,” Rose said, shopping on the upscale boulevard Königsallee in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The couple returned to their second-floor hotel room to get ready for dinner, where they would meet some old friends. Having been to Istanbul numerous times and fallen in love with Turkish pastries, Rose had spotted and noted a Turkish bakery across the street and decided to venture out for 15 or 20 minutes to pick up some baklava before dinner.
As was her habit, she took the stairs, but it wasn't the first time she had done so on this trip and also not the first time she noticed they lacked a handrail and seemed treacherous. In fact, she had said so to Helmut.
Armed with a box of baklava from across the street, Rose went back upstairs and kicked at the bottom of the hotel room door—her hands were full—and said,“helmut, open the door!” No reply.
“Maybe he's walking around the building,” Rose said she thought,“because Helmut loved architecture.” She put down the box, opened the door and discovered that her husband wasn't there.
Before long, a man from the hotel reception desk knocked on the door. Rose, a high-energy person still, began talking fast in praise of the hotel and the man stopped her and told her to sit down. Her husband had just been sent to the hospital in an ambulance after a very bad accident.
It would be a day and a half before she saw him again, after dealing with weekend hospital protocol in Germany and associated confusion over Helmut being a German citizen but residing in the United States.
Over and over again, she said, in that German hospital, doctors and nurses told her that his fall down those treacherous steps had been so bad that her husband was and would be completely paralyzed save for some eye movement and mechanical function of his lips. “Your husband has had the worst possible fall he could have,” they said. He spent three weeks in a coma, and when he awoke, there had been no improvement.
With help from an old friend, Rose arranged a private flight back to the United States and with advice from a newer friend here, she called Hope to arrange for the caring comfort of hospice care. Rose and Helmut had discussed this type of eventuality, and she knew firmly that hospice would have been his decision, too.
Rose sent her mother and sister from Naples ahead, to check out Joanne's House at Hope Hospice in Bonita Springs.they were pleased. “You should see this place,” they told her. Helmut died there peacefully, four days later. “I felt lifted,” Rose said.“i was so sad. But I was so glad that he was home.and there were no machines.”
If a friend or loved one is living with a serious illness or medical condition, Hope can provide peace, dignity and comfort. Call 239482-HOPE or visit Hopehospice.org to find out how Hope can help.
“I felt lifted. I was so sad. But I was so glad that he was home. And there were no machines.” — Rose Mamsch