Memories run deep, and gratitude is offered again and again. Frank Harmon met Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care Inpatient Coordinator Anita Pinson in 1994, the night his wife Joyce was nearing the end of her second bout with cancer, and Anita was the on-call nurse. We can call it a chance meeting, but then we're left to explain why it matters 13 years later.

Joyce Harmon had survived an extended cancer experience earlier, but when it recurred this time, the cancer wouldn't be denied. She was cared for by our hospice for a short time, only about a month, and she stayed at home the whole time, where Frank could cook and clean and look after her, even picking her up when she fell. At home, Joyce's dog Tracy could lie on the bed with her to offer comfort, too.

One cold March night, which was Joyce's last night, she wouldn't eat a thing, no matter what Frank and their grown children tried to do. They needed Hospice, and when they called, it was Anita who answered and got to their house quickly, about 12:30 a.m.; she stayed with them until 5 the next morning.

Anita remembers that Frank and Joyce's girls liked to laugh; that Tracy the dog caught the marshmallows they threw to her, running to "her" rug to eat them, and then she slept on the bed with Joyce.

Frank recalls everyone who helped the family during Joyce's illness, including Hudson Drug, where Jonathan "helped every way he could." Frank remembers, too, that CHPC offered to cover the expenses for Joyce's pain medicine, if he needed our help, but he was "working a good job" at the time and could make the payments himself.

These days, Frank has the house to himself; he doesn't cook much for himself, but he stays busy, "grubbin' trees before they get too big," being a handyman around the house, and going to AJ's for lunch every day at 11 a.m. Everyone knows him there, and if he is running late, they tell him they "were fixin' to send the National Guard" to look for him!

Frank's children are doing well. One daughter is the principal at Baton School, and the other works at a bank in Morganton; one son works for Interstate Batteries, and the other one makes Snap-on Tools in Elizabethton, Tennessee, but comes to visit every other weekend. Frank worked hard to support them and taught them to work hard, too.

Anita claims she "didn't do that much" to help the Harmon family, but she made an impression on them. Frank has been bringing peaches, apples, and other fruits to CHPC for 13 years, and Anita always gets first choice. He used to drive to South Carolina for the peaches and to a Wilkesboro Road orchard to get the apples. Frank said the drought in 2007 made it a little difficult to get the produce for Hospice. His gentle smile and insistence on the value of Anita and Hospice would have been more than enough in the way of gratitude for us!

(published in the Spring 2008 issue of CHPC's quarterly newsletter, Kirkwood Carelines)