Caring for one of ‘the Few – the Proud’

By Leslie Holleran • November 7, 2008 7:34 pm
Daniel Cahill (left) tells Ryan Wiser from Providence Hospice of Seattle’s Transitions program about his 10 year-long military career. Cahill was a naval aviator in World War II and a pilot for the U.S. embassy in China.
Daniel Cahill (left) tells Ryan Wiser from Providence Hospice of Seattle’s Transitions program about his 10 year-long military career. Cahill was a naval aviator in World War II and a pilot for the U.S. embassy in China.

By Leslie Holleran

Special to the Reporter

Sometimes in the golden years of life the tables turn. Those who had been there to serve others need help themselves. When this happened to Daniel Cahill, 87, of Bellevue, he and his family enlisted the help Providence Senior and Community Services’ Transitions program.

Cahill served in the U.S. armed forces for 10 years. He spent three years as a reservist with the Marines following graduation from Garfield High School in Seattle in 1937. He recalls that one of his duties included marching up and down the waterfront.

In 1940, Cahill was chosen for the Navy/Marine V-5 program and sent to Corpus Christi, Texas to become a pilot. Following his training, he went to Pensacola, Fla., where he was a flight instructor. “Pensacola was the Annapolis for flyers,” Cahill said.

Near the end of World War II, he was stationed in the South Pacific, training for the invasion of Japan. It wasn’t until after the war that the highlight of his military career occurred. From 1945 to 1946, he was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Peiping (now called Beijing) as a pilot to fly dignitaries around.

“I would fly all of the brass,” he said. Included among them was Mao Zedong, who would become the Communist leader of China a few years later.

In 1947, after being overseas for three years, Cahill finally came home. He met a girl, Mary, from St. Paul at a friend’s wedding. Three weeks after the wedding he proposed to her, but she didn’t say yes. She went home to Minnesota and following a year of corresponding, he asked her to marry him a second time. Mary wrote back that they would be getting married the 22nd of January.

The Cahills would have been married for 60 years this past January. In that time, they raised six children and had 17 grandchildren. Mary Cahill passed away at home, following a month of care from Providence Hospice of Seattle, in September 2007.

Following his wife’s death, Cahill says that he fell apart.

“I got pneumonia. I got all this stuff,” he said. This led to a hospitalization and a stay in a nursing facility.

Since returning home, Providence Senior and Community Services’ Transitions team program has provided Cahill with additional support to help him cope with the loss of wife. Providence’s Transitions program is geared toward people who are not yet ready or eligible for full-fledged hospice care. The program provides resources to help clients and families deal with life changes and make informed care decisions. In addition, a volunteer, who works specifically for this program, provides some Cahill with some companionship.

Leslie Holleran is Public Relations Program Coordinator for Providence Hospice of Seattle, the oldest hospice in the Pacific Northwest. For more information, please go to www.providence.org/hospiceofseattle.