I steal codeine from the hospice where I volunteer

Dear Delyara, I am sixty-eight and volunteer at a hospice two afternoons a week. I began taking codeine years ago for migraines, then back pain, then because ordinary evenings felt empty without it. My doctor reduced the prescription after noticing early refill requests. At the hospice, unused medication is recorded and destroyed, but I discovered how to take small amounts without immediate suspicion. I tell myself the patients no longer need it or that the tablets would be discarded. Last month, a discrepancy triggered an audit. Staff were reminded about procedures. Everyone looked at one another with concern, never at me. I am the retired teacher who brings homemade biscuits and reads to dying patients. Nobody imagines I am counting tablets while families say goodbye. Yesterday, a nurse cried because she feared she had completed a record incorrectly. I comforted her and said mistakes happen. Two tablets were inside my bra while I spoke. Tonight, I have taken both. The headache is gone. The shame is not. I keep thinking about the word hospice, a place meant to offer dignity at the end of life, and the quiet indignity of an old woman stealing relief from rooms where pain is already abundant.