This year, some of our patients and their families will spend their last Christmas together.
With your help, our nurses will be there for them through this unprecedented time.
Our Hospice at Home team has been working non-stop throughout this terrible pandemic. Our 42 devoted Nurses and Health Care Assistants are supporting families right now, who are facing their last Christmas together.
We can make someone’s final few hours with their loved ones peaceful and comfortable, but this expert care costs money to provide. This year we are under even more financial pressure due to the ongoing pandemic.
We're asking – on behalf of every patient we’ll see over the holidays – to help us give them the care and support they’ll need for their final Christmas together.
Whatever you feel you can manage would be greatly appreciated by all of us.
Thank you for your support
The Door
We’ve never met before,
Your family are tired and full of fear as I walk through your door.
The door that I knock at has been the gateway to your life,
The doorway is the threshold you carried your wife.
You welcomed your children within the walls of your home,
As they grew and flew the nest they stayed connected by phone.
The test of true love runs ever so deep,
As your family start to gather they sit round you and weep.
They talk of the good times, they talk of the bad,
They manage a giggle but deep down they are sad.
As your condition starts to change and your world starts to dim,
You are fighting your hardest but it’s a battle you can’t win.
I comfort your wife as she holds you so tight,
She loves you so much but wants you to give up your fight.
She can’t bear to be without you nor see you go on,
The grief turns to anger, why did they get it so wrong?
You follow your wife’s wishes and slip away with a sigh,
Leaving your wife so alone, she wasn’t ready for you to die.
While I assured your family you did your very best,
They fully understand you needed to rest.
As your soul flies high and breaks away from the pain,
Your family are crushed and life will never be the same.
I comfort your family but can’t stop the tears,
Why should I be able? They loved you for years.
I prepare your body, it’s frail and cold,
The home it provided you vacant, and sold.
I say my goodbyes, and leave your family with each other,
They find comfort in knowing you are reunited with your mother.
As I make my way home, a tear starts to fall,
But I could do no more, I gave you my all.
We’ve never met before.
But I will never forget the night I walked through your door.
Rest in peace xx
Nicola Ward
Treetops Hospice at Home Nurse