Patient & Family Stories

There are some rooms in hospice that feel a little extra full, not just with people, but with laughter and life. That was the case with one patient we cared for – I’ll call her Sarah.

Sarah was rarely alone. Her daughters were always around, and together, they were just…joyful. The kind of joy that comes from deep love and years of inside jokes. You’d hear them laughing and teasing each other – the kind of teasing that only works when you really know each other’s hearts.

So many of their stories together centered around food. More specifically, Sarah’s baking. She was known for it. Holidays, birthdays, Sunday momings, her donuts, cookies, and breads were the centerpiece. I remember hearing them laugh about how she’d spend hours in the kitchen baking… and how everything would disappear minutes later. And somehow, no one ever knew what happened to the first dozen cookies.

They talked about this old family recipe book she had, handwritten, passed down, well-loved. I told them I’d love to see it sometime. A few days later, one of her daughters brought it in… and it was magic. This cookbook had been through life, you could tell. The pages were soft and wrinkled from use. There were oil stains, smudges of batter, and vanilla spots everywhere. Some of the pages looked like they might crumble if you breathed too hard on them. And the best part? Sarah had written notes next to certain recipes, things hke ‘yum’ or ‘yum yum, so good!Honestly, it was one of the most beautiful cookbooks I’ve ever seen. Not because it was perfect, but because it was loved.

We decided to bake together one afternoon. Downstairs in our family kitchen, we made her gingersnaps, one of her favourites. And that afternoon was…special. We laughed. We taste-tested molasses. I learned that ‘measuring with the heart’ is a real thing. It was one of those moments where the room just felt full in all the right ways.

Later on, I wanted to create something special for the family – something to honour that recipe book and all the memories inside it. So I asked one of her daughters what recipe meant the most to her, and she said, ‘the donuts’, of course. I took that recipe, kept it in Sarah’s handwriting, and made it into a little piece of wall art for the family. A way to keep part of her – and those sweet, messy, joy-filled moments – close.

Love is in the laughter, the flour-dusted pages, and the donuts that disappear before they even cool.
Every patient has a story. Thank you for letting us be part of theirs.

Some of the most meaningful moments in hospice care start with something small – a quick comment, an offhand thought, something that seems like nothing… until someone listens a little closer. This is a story about our staff member, Ari, and a patient we’ll call Nina.

Ari was going door to door one afternoon, taking lunch orders. When she got to Nina’s room, Nina was flipping through a Chatelaine magazine.”
o’Ari was going door to door one afternoon, taking lunch orders. When she got to Nina’s room, Nina was flipping through a Chatelaine magazine.” She paused on a page and held it up – it was this gorgeous, elaborate cake. The kind that looks
like it belongs on the cover of a cookbook.
She smiled and said, kind of offhand, ‘I wonder how they made this? I’d love to try it. Then she tucked the page back, placed her lunch order, and that was that.

But not for Ari.She went home, looked up the recipe, and got to work in the kitchen.
The next day, she walked into Nina’s room… and surprised her with the very cake from that
magazine. It was such a small moment, but it meant so much. The look on Nina’s face – pure joy. Surprise. Delight, because someone had listened.

That’s what person-centered care looks like. It doesn’t always come in big, sweeping gestures. Sometimes, it’s just noticing a moment… and turning it into something special. That cake probably wasn’t in any care plan or medical chart. But it was exactly what Nina needed that day.

She said she’d love to try the cake. So someone made it for her.
Every patient has a story. Every moment matters.

Working in hospice, you meet some incredible people. People who, without even realizing it.. Leave a mark on you.

I want to tell you about someone I’ll call Julia.

From the moment you walked into her room, you felt it. This calm, warm energy. She was full of life, even in the face of everything she was going through.

And her smile.. She smiled with her whole face. Even after she had her dentures removed and felt self-conscious about it, that smile still lit up the room. I honestly don’t think anyone noticed anything but how beautiful and full of joy she was.

The first time I met her, she was listening to a podcast about the bible. And right away, she started sharing with me how her faith gave her strength and how she felt really blessed. Not in a grand, dramatic way… just thankful. For her life. For her family. For the little things.

She told me she wasn’t afraid. That she trusted in what came next. And it wasn’t about denial. She was very grounded. But there was this peace in her, and it stayed with me.

We started doing little bible studies together, just the two of us. She got so much joy from it, sharing versus that meant something to her, talking about them and just being present in the moment.

Her favorite verse was Isaiah 40:31. She could recite it by heart. “But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles…” It gave her so much comfort.

One day, I made her a little sun catcher inspired by that verse. Her bed was right up against the window, and she loved when we’d crack it open so she could feel the breeze. I just wanted her to have something there. A little reflection of that strength and peace she carried.

Not every patient wants the same things. Some want quiet. Some want music. Some want to talk about their life, others want to hear about yours. For Julia, it was about her faith. So that’s where we met her.

She reminded me that the small things matter. A verse, a breeze, a smile. That even when life is winding down, there is still space for joy.

Every patient has a story. Thank you for letting us be part of theirs.

Some people just have music in them, it runs through their life like a thread. That was the case for one of our patients
– I’ll call her Linda.

Linda was a lifelong learner. One day she told me, totally off hand, that she’d taught herself how to play the mandolin. At around 60 years old. Like it was nothing. And then she casually mentioned that she and her friends used to perform at kitchen parties and nursing homes. She never called herself a musician, but she clearly was.

One day she mentioned that she’d even written a song about a place that meant a lot to her: Upham. She told me it was somewhere in this big box of music she had at home, but she didn’t have the energy to go through it all. I offered to look through it if someone in her family could bring it in. She loved that idea.

A few days later… this arrived. Let me tell you – I had no idea what I was signing up for!
It was packed. Every sheet of music she’d collected over the years. Songs from the Carter Family, Boxcar Willie, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline… it was like digging through someone’s entire musical life. And then – there it was. Her handwritten song about Upham.

With Linda’s permission, I shared it with our music therapist, Julian. He learned the melody, recorded it for her, and played it live at her bedside. We printed the sheet music and the lyrics and framed them for Linda, so she could keep it close, and so her family could hold on to it, too.

What I love about this story is that Linda didn’t see herself as anything special. But she was, in the quiet, beautiful way that people often are. We meet people in their final chapter, but that doesn’t mean their story’s over. Sometimes, it
just needs a little help to be heard.