Peace, solace and healing at the end of the journey—Lyn Little
“Nature is where I find meaning,” said Lyn Little, co-chair of the Midwest CareCenter Garden Advisory Committee and longtime gardening enthusiast. An accredited judge of national flower shows and competitions as well as a member of the Kenilworth Garden Club, Lyn regards nature as “a source of joy, a foundation of my belief and a huge part of my healing process.”
Compassionate care
In 2006, Lyn’s “totally healthy and active” husband, Frank, went into cardiac arrest. During the ten days he was in the hospital, Frank received four different procedures and eventually suffered a massive, debilitating stroke. His good friend, Dr. Dennis Murphy, encouraged Lyn and her family to transfer Frank to the Midwest CareCenter inpatient unit, where he would receive hospice services during the last days of his life.
Lyn found the care at the inpatient unit to be “over the top—the staff were so kind and loving to him and to us,” she said, referring to herself, her four adult children and their families. Lyn appreciated that the nurses would inform her about what was going on with Frank and that she could play music and sit in the unit’s chapel for quiet respite.
On the unit, however, Lyn longed from the comforts of nature. “I kept thinking that the rooms and gathering spaces needed fresh flowers.” And when she looked out the unit’s windows, “There was a used car lot to the west and a cemetery to the north.” In sum, she noted with a laugh, “The care was great, but the view was terrible.”
Healing garden
Lyn was thrilled, then, two years later, when she was asked to chair the Garden Advisory Committee, which is coordinating the development of the healing garden on the Midwest CareCenter Glenview campus. Scheduled to open in 2012, the garden will surround the organization’s soon-to-be constructed inpatient hospice pavilion—both will be adjacent to the scenic Techny Basin, a wildlife and nature preserve.
“Basically, you have this freestanding hospice unit in the middle of a natural wonderland that can’t be tampered with,” said Lyn. As a member of the Glenview Prairie Preservation Project in 1998, Lyn lobbied the Village of Glenview to protect the Techny Basin from commercial and residential development. So, in many ways, the healing garden represents the culmination of Lyn’s advocacy efforts 12 years ago, and she credits the Village for “being so supportive” in protecting natural landscapes.
In her role on the Garden Advisory Committee, Lyn works with other members, including Gene Rothert of the Chicago Botanic Garden and landscape designers, to “visualize what the space will need.” Preliminary plans include a year-round garden with beautiful vistas, bird feeders, wheelchair-accessible pathways, prairie-indigenous plants, water features and a cutting garden, so that patients and families can bring flowers in from outside.
All the features of the garden will unite, Lyn believes, to create a peaceful, respectful space for dying patients and their families to walk through or simply look at. Lyn reflects: “As a society, we don’t do a good job preparing people for death. Hospice helps to ease fears—it normalizes the dying process. It only makes sense, then, to take patients and families out of what is often a sterile, noisy and stressful environment … and into a quiet, serene, natural place where they can spend meaningful moments together at this stage in life.”
