For nearly 20 years, Trish Carling has known what she's doing every Sunday morning.
The Canberra woman spends the end of every week with the dying and their loved ones, offering cups of tea, a chocolate and a warm presence.
"My grandmother died when I was in my early 20s, and I was able to be with her when she died, and I think that took a lot of the fear out of it," she said when asked about a now 30-year career volunteering in palliative care.
She remembers seeing her grandmother, surrounded by relatives in uncomfortable chairs and silence.
When she took her hand and reassured her the family would care for her husband, Ms Carling unlocked a lifelong knack for showing up in the most difficult times.
It wasn't until she was a bit older, when she had lost more family members to tragedy, that the seed for volunteering really took root.
"I just recall thinking at the time, 'It's lovely that these people have had support and kindness around them, and the people left behind have got that kindness as well, but what happens to people who are on their own?'"
Ms Carling was Canberra's 2025 Volunteer of the Year, and was honoured at the inaugural national Volunteer of the Year Award night earlier in May.
The national award, presented by Governor-General Sam Mostyn, was presented to Dr Felix Ho from the Northern Territory for extensive work with St John Ambulance.
But Ms Carling has never volunteered for recognition.
Since she enrolled in training at Clare Holland House in 1996, and added the Motor Neurone Disease Clinic and Support Group in 2022, she has seen many familiar faces come through - she's from Canberra, after all.
It can get to be a burden, but it's the connection she gets out of it from other volunteers, staff at the clinics, and the people she talks with, that keeps her coming back.
"It was quite some years ago, and a man called Peter was admitted to the hospice, and Peter was a gorgeous man in his 50s ... he was a kind man, lovely fellow, didn't have any children," she recalls.
"Every Sunday morning, it was our ritual for months, I would feed him his bacon and eggs.
"This one morning it was belting rain, absolutely belting rain, and I went out of the room to get some hot water for his tea, and all of a sudden I heard this voice ... he was yelling out, 'Trish, Trish, come quick'.
"I thought, 'Oh, hello, he's choking', and I raced back in, and he was pointing with his little finger at a tiny little blue wren that was sheltering under a bush outside the door, and he said, 'Isn't that the cutest thing you've ever seen? I wanted you to see it.'"
It's been those tiny little moments over 30 years that have kept her going, along with the knowledge that in the end, most people think about their loved ones above anything else.
"Pete was alive, he was living. You're alive until you're not," she says.
"And he was showing me kindness."
She held that perspective close while working as a Senate committee research officer from Parliament House, where big egos can sometimes block everything else out.
"It didn't matter to me who you were or what you were, it was how you behaved toward me [that mattered]," she says.
"And I actually found that some of the most successful, amazing people are often the kindest."
