Shirley Stevens was antsy. The lifelong bachelor and retiree was tired of sitting around. So he took a receptionist training course and landed at University Hospitals of Cleveland (UHC).
Except University Hospitals didn’t need any more receptionists, so he was told to report farther east to a nursing home. “But I am satisfied here,” said Stevens. “I’m not worried about money.” So he walked himself into the University Hospitals volunteer services office and never looked back.
Nearly 14,000 hours, countless public transportation trips and 17 years later, Shirley Stevens, who has never driven a car, has found a family he never had. And the feeling is mutual.
Stevens, who reports to "work" nearly every day, has handled a variety of tasks while volunteering at UHC. Born 83 years ago to a single mom with a two-year-old son, Stevens has volunteered extensively at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital (RB&C) where he’s done everything from daily monitoring of refrigerators to busy clerical work. Lately, he’s been volunteering in the office of governmental relations. “My supervisor at Rainbow reminds me I’m on loan,” he laughs.
But when asked to describe his most memorable moments, this stoic man who insists he only volunteers to “keep busy” can barely form the words. His face softens and he describes his interactions with adults and children whose names he can’t remember, yet vivid stories remain -- stories of how their lives intersected when vulnerability and fear reign supreme on the emotional spectrum of a hospital patient.
Three young boys stand out. “The first one turned me around,” says Stevens. “He was a seven-year-old leukemia patient whose mom couldn’t be with him, so I spent hours each day.
One day, I went with him to the doctor because he was upset. But while he was with the doctor, I left to go home, not thinking,” he continues. “And the next time I saw him, he was mad and disappointed in me for not telling him I was leaving. Ever since then, I learned you need to tell the kids when you are leaving and when you will be back. I’ve never forgotten that.”
In addition to this boy, Stevens remembers a young man at Rainbow on his 16th birthday. He and the child-life specialist helped him bake a cake before Stevens went home to his empty house. “I heard later he passed,” whispers Stevens, who never knew his own father.
And then there was the boy permanently confined to a wheelchair who had problems at home. “He was stuck in the bed and I would do puzzles with him and keep him company. I got a picture with him the day before he left, “says Stevens. “When he was getting ready to leave, he reached around and grabbed me and it went all through me. Just to see him go was hard. Just the warmth, the reflection from his body, ya’ know, the love temperature. I guess he was saying ‘thank you," says Stevens, his voice quivering.
Strolling through the halls of University Hospitals with Shirley Stevens is like accompanying a dignitary. Employees and other volunteers offer their greetings, and Shirley can often be found providing directions for vulnerable patients. “If I can offer assistance, it looks like nothing, but you never really know what’s going through their minds,” says Stevens. “All these things seem small and insignificant at the time, but when you look back, it meant something to somebody.”
He was strolling through the halls on one occasion when he realized there was a message for him at the volunteer services office. A patient involved in a serious automobile accident was in the emergency room and not expected to live. The middle-aged man’s family was not able to be there, so hospital staff decided to do the next best thing: summon Shirley Stevens to hold his hand.
Again, he can barely form the words. “First, they asked me if I would do it, and I had to think about it for a minute. I was new to this, and I went up there and saw all the blood, but when I held his hand he seemed to relax,” says Stevens. ‘I stayed for awhile and when I left to go home I remembered what that 7-year-old boy taught me about telling someone when you’d be back. So I told him I would see him tomorrow. I made a promise. I wasn’t supposed to be in the next day, so I planned to come by and see him. But when I called the hospital, they told me he had passed,” he says softly.
In a culture laden with news headlines about CEOs and other local leaders, Shirley Stevens is a man among many who touches others’ lives in a quiet way. Seventeen years ago, he set out to begin training as a hospital receptionist. Today, this lifelong bachelor and decades-long church youth group leader’s legacy is a patchwork of simple human kindness to the many church members, UHC patients, families and employees who have been lucky to know him.
“My pastor said years back that we are here for a reason, a purpose and a cause and we don’t even know what it is, but as we go along we’ll find out,” says Stevens. I am going to volunteer until life leaves me. You may not get a financial reward but it’s coming some other way.”
