Tucked inside the garden at Hospice Austin’s Christopher House, a blue telephone sits with a plaque reading: To say hello/ To say goodbye/ To say I miss you/ To say I love you. The “wind phone” doesn’t take calls, in the traditional sense, but it offers an outlet for grieving loved ones to say what they wish they could to someone they’ve lost. While her mom catches up with nurses inside, a little girl settles here among the flowers and trees, talking through the blue plastic to her dad, a former patient at Christopher House.
Hospice care involves providing pain management and support for patients with terminal illnesses. At Hospice Austin, the city’s only nonprofit hospice, their donation-supported care comes largely from about 350 trained volunteers who’ve also experienced great loss. The majority of the organization’s roughly 330 patients a day stay at home, but a select few live at Christopher House for extra aid. The building originally was a facility for HIV/AIDS patients, and a wall of stone hands at the front of Christopher House reminds guests now of this longstanding history of looking after those in need.
While having a historic home like this makes them unique, Hospice Austin’s PR and media manager Kiki Jones emphasizes that the services they provide patients’ families makes them even more special. Rather than exclusively focusing on patient care, Hospice Austin offers families and friends impacted by significant loss extensive grief support, including support groups, counseling, a free children’s grief summer camp, and an open door to visit the wind phone, memorial bricks, or staff at Christopher House.
“Grief affects so many people that our bereavement services are open to anybody who’s facing a loss,” says Jones. “That is really big in our mission, is taking care of you and your family.”…