A few months ago, I left to go to California to meet with the team at Zen Hospice. I learned about Zen Hospice after watching a TED talk given by BJ Miller about designing for death. I was so inspired, I wanted to see the place for myself. They have an incredible program and I wanted to learn as much as I could from them. On my way to San Francisco, I was able to make a stop to meet a wonderful family.
Many of you know my daughter had SMA, a terminal condition that is similar to ALS. We met many other SMA parents on Facebook and enjoyed getting to know families all over the US and abroad. One such parent contacted me about wanting to help Love Not Lost - his name is Kim.
Kim is an incredible person who I am so honored to know. He started a children's nursing home years ago, and when that wasn't meeting all the needs, he started a children's hospice center. When there still weren't enough beds, he and his wife opened up their home and adopted several severely handicapped kids, including a beautiful girl with SMA. Kim offered to help me with some literature for our training program since he established the nursing home and hospice and has traveled on speaking circuits leading talks about grief. I was happy to have his help and we arranged to meet.
While I was there, I offered to do a portrait session with their family. Kim brought two of his daughters to the park with him to meet me for the session. Not everyone could be there, but it was really fun to capture some sisterly love and preserve those memories for them. The joy in their faces just exploded as they chased each other around the park, met new friends, played with friendly dogs, and even tried to sneak on the soccer field to play with a team that was practicing.
We had so much fun and are so excited to share these memories with you:
As we continued on to San Francisco, we met the Zen Hospice team and toured their facility which is beautiful. They are so intentional, thoughtful, and kind. We are so excited to go back and visit them in 2017 to go through one of their trainings as we prepare to launch our own training. Feel free to follow along our journeys on social media @lovenotlostorg