After dedicating his life’s work to caring for others as a palliative care nurse, Bill unfortunately needed to apply his gift for compassionate caregiving toward aiding his wife Sarah through a terminal illness. A mother of two, Sarah was just 60-years-old when she was diagnosed last year with Glioblastoma, an aggressive form of malignant brain tumor.
As Bill witnessed his wife’s cancer progress, he reached out to his former colleague Niki Pugach for assistance. With more than 30 years of social work experience, Niki leads Parmenter’s One-on-One Social Worker Support program and works as a hospice social worker for Good Shepherd Community Care, a Parmenter grantee organization. Niki readily signed on to facilitate Sarah’s hospice care and to help guide Sarah and her family through Sarah’s end-of-life journey.
Niki is also a longtime Parmenter trustee and proponent of Parmenter’s program, UGrieve, helping to improve support and compassion for college students who are grappling with a loved one’s end-of-life and/or death. With UGrieve in mind, Niki quickly focused on the family’s sorrow around the distinct possibility Sarah may not be able to attend her son’s upcoming graduation as a math major from UMass Lowell. As she had done for other families, Niki suggested she could help organize a special early graduation ceremony. Sarah, Bill, Nick and his sister Elizabeth were all thrilled by the prospect of this event.
Niki explains, “Part of hospice is expecting the unexpected and working with it. Sarah expressed how meaningful it would be to her to see Nick graduate. Granting even the smallest request for someone facing the end of their life can make a world of difference.”
Niki worked with Cori Lee, Program Administrator of UMass Lowell’s math department to coordinate the unique ceremony. Ms. Lee and her colleagues were eager to oblige and immediately stepped up to make arrangements. “We try our hardest to show compassion for what’s happening in students’ personal lives. We wanted to do whatever we could to help support Nick,” she says.
Five of Nick’s math professors, along with Ms. Lee, traveled to join Nick and his family for the intimate graduation ceremony. In addition, a math professor who never even had Nick in her class was so moved by Nick’s story, she chose to attend. “Pomp and Circumstance” played on a small speaker as Nick, adorned in cap and gown, and his professors marched from the kitchen to the living room where Sarah sat alongside her family, all beaming with pride. Professor Matthew Beyranevand made a moving speech about Nick and his resilience throughout this extremely difficult period, including, “Nick has been balancing the demands of a full academic workload with the emotional and practical demands of caring for a mother who is seriously ill. The strength and perseverance that he has shown throughout this difficult time are nothing short of extraordinary.”
All one had to do was see the look on Sarah’s face to know how impactful this gathering was for her. Bill described, “Sarah’s mouth was agape through the whole thing, as she was so taken aback. She just kept repeating, ‘this is so awesome!’ and ‘I am so happy!’ throughout the ceremony. It was truly beautiful.”
Bill wrote to Niki afterwards, “Everyone wants to make a positive difference in the world and you, Ms. Lee and the faculty at UMass Lowell certainly did that here.” Parmenter is hoping to affect changes on college campuses so that faculty, staff and students all lead with empathy and compassion, just as UMass Lowell did in this situation.
Sadly, Sarah passed away on May 1, 2025. Her absence at Nick’s formal college graduation will be palpable, but her family will garner great comfort in the memory of the special ceremony they were fortunate to share with her.
