the smell of tomato sauce, molten mozzarella and ricotta wafted out to the nurses' station, and Kennedy gently invited the hospice folks to lunch.

Betty Koepnick was there. Her son Bob, a 60-year-old Vietnam veteran, had been in hospice for two weeks.

"My son says, 'Mom, be sure you get here for lunch on Wednesday.' He raves about her food," Koepnick says, tilting her head at Kennedy as she dabbed at her eyes with a paper napkin. Bob's not eating much these days, but he likes the idea of his mom having a nice lunch.

For people like Ada Lewis, what the volunteer chefs at Bay Pines Hospice provide is time. She described how, when her husband was sick last year, she never wanted to run out to get something toeat. She didn't want to leave Greg alone, didn't want to risk missing his last moments. So Kennedy and her fellow volunteers stock the fridge with meals the families can nuke.

X...X...X

When Campagna came in for lunch, Kennedy gave him a big hug. She leaned toward his good ear and recited the day's menu before helping him get a plate of shells.

While he dined he told his story. Started work for Ford Motors at age 14. Drafted, ending World War II in the 1,269th Engineer Combat Battalion, among the first troops to come upon the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany. After that, a hairdresser for 30 years (but in the 1970s he refused to back-comb -- he had his standards), then a ballroom dance instructor.

It's a long story. Looking