Susan McMillin, Granddaughter of Myrtice: When you feel their arms around you, you feel
the caring that’s going on here.
Scott McMillin: As we had the experience and we just continued to talk about it and didn’t
realize just what a huge positive impact it had on us, so both her and I are proudly leading
this campaign to bring Sharp Hospice Home to the South Bay.
Susan: I spent a lot of time with my grandmother growing up.
She took care of my sister and I a lot, weekends.
She lived by the beach and we would go to her house and walk to the beach.
You know it gave us great peace of mind to have this wonderful home for my grandmother.
And we feel that everybody deserves to have a place to go to, end of life, that’s loving
and caring and they just made us feel at ease.
That they were going to be here taking care of my grandmother.
And so she wasn’t going to be alone, she was, you know, there was people going to be
around her all the time.
Suzi K. Johnson, Vice President of Sharp HospiceCare: Behind me is the Tree of Life, which represents
the generous giving of philanthropic donors, many of whom have actually had a family experience
here.
The next home will be in the South Bay and my vision is that we are able to raise funds
and build a new home about every five years in our communities throughout San Diego.
Ruth Lemerand, Hospice Aide at Lakeview Home: Our homes that are nestled within the communities,
I think that's just an awesome idea.
And we have a complete package here that we can offer that no one else can.
Suzi: My dad was a patient at Lakeview Home about three and a half years ago, and within
a moment of getting into bed and having the colored sheets and having clean, fresh jammies
put on he said "oh, I feel so much better."
That was within 15 minutes.
Henry Zajd, Son of Josek and Sari: Both my parents were in concentration camps.
My dad was 19 years old when he went into labor camp and my mom was 14 years old.
They had a train full of coal and he had to shovel the coal out of the train and he told
the supervisor that he wanted to do a whole trainload by himself.
And he could do more work than any of the other bigger men than him, and that's how
he survived.
Sixty-two years that my parents were married.
They’d be playing a game and my mother would have jokers in her hand but my dad would like
to win and she would keep them and let him win.
And that really tells you that somebody cares for somebody else when they can do that.
It was a great love story.
I went to see my parents and my father was very sick and she was sick, too, and she needed
to be somewhere that someone could give her better care than I could give her.
That’s when the nurse suggested that she come here.
After my mother passed away I was at, in our home with my father, I was afraid to go to
sleep because I was afraid that he might need me when I’m asleep.
And so when the nurse suggested that he come here, and he did come here, that night when
I went home I felt like a son.
Because I realized that I felt a relief off my shoulders that there’s some, I feel confident
there’s someone capable of taking care of him and it's not me.
Judy Jarvis, RN at Lakeview Home: Hospice is really not about dying.
It's about living richly and giving people the opportunity to have quality of life for
as long as they have.
Nicole Lee, Granddaughter of Bill and Jane: Bill and Jane [Ham] are my grandparents.
This home is where they left, and I think that if I need to visit them it's not going
to be where we sprinkle the ashes, it's going to be in this house.
It felt like home.
Everybody was like an extended family.
This is somewhere I would want to be.
I don’t want the huge burden of caring for me to fall on my son.
I would want him to be able to come to a place like this.
This home, Lakeview Home, made such an impact on me.
It's just such a great place that I felt I had to do something to help.
And if they’re going to build a third hospice home, I want to be involved in any way I can.
One night when I was with my grandmother she was smiling and staring over my shoulder.
And I asked what was she smiling at?
And she just kept smiling.
And I felt like maybe she was looking at somebody.
Judy: I like to sit with patients on the night shift and just sit with them, you know?
And sometimes I hold their hand, sometimes we just chat.
And Jane started talking about do you suppose there is a plan?
Do you suppose, all kinds of things about what might be.
And I said, "well, have you seen anything?"
And she said, "well, I’ve seen Bill."
I said, "well, that’s good because you know people often see someone that’s on the other
side that comes to them."
And she said, "I’ve seen Bill."
And I said, "well, you know what Jane, you’re getting closer."
And I said, "I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next few days or so you’re not on
the other side dancing with Bill."
And she looked at me and she smiled and she said that would be so lovely.
That’s awesome.