The Family Cottage
Bedside volunteer, Ruth Trueman, shares a poignant "moment of the day".

Peaceful Beach (Image by Mueller, Courtesy of Bruce McGaw Graphics)

As you well know the volunteers experience some very moving moments as they go about their work bringing art to the bedside. I wanted to tell you about this most recent one.

With another volunteer I quietly entered the room of a gravely ill and sleeping woman. The conversation we had was with the patient’s mother and sister, who were sitting nearby. They expressed a wish for beach images, for over a number of years the patient had spent summers at a family cottage on the ocean in the Maritimes. As it happened we had two beauties on our carts, so up they went. “These will be perfect”, said the patient’s sister. “We will be sure to bring them to her attention when she wakes up. She has been reminiscing about her time at the cottage and these will go along beautifully with the sand and the water on her windowsill that arrived just yesterday.”

And so it was. Another close relative, with the help of a delivery by special courier, had sent a small container of ocean water and a handful of sand from the beach the patient had enjoyed and into which she was able to dip her hands.

Deeply touched by the story, there was little left for either of us to say other than we hoped our small gesture might also ease the patient’s approaching journey home.