We do not know ahead of time the impact of a particular encounter with a patient—for the patient or for ourselves. When I worked with families in hospice, I learned that sometimes my encounters began a meaningful conversation, which the patient then finished internally or with someone else. Sometimes I walked into the middle of a process begun by a colleague or someone else. And sometimes, I had the opportunity to be present for the end of the conversation— perhaps near the end of life or at the moment of death. I learned to not take encounters with patients for granted. Unfortunately, this lesson was also ignored or minimized when I felt the challenge to rush towards the next encounter demanding my attention. And so we are challenged to be attentive to where we enter the conversations with patients and challenged to be flexible in the course of our encounters with patients—a process of guiding and following the patients’ journey in their illness. The following story describes an encounter with a patient very early in my career as a hospice social worker. Afterwards, when I had self-doubt or wondered what to do next, I began to rely on respect, compassion and empathy along with my knowledge, skills and resources in the community. Later, one cancer survivor offered gratitude this way: