When Susan “Suzy” Snow made a gift to Housecall Providers, she checked a small box on the donation form indicating she wanted to share her family’s story. We met Suzy at a neighborhood coffee shop to talk about caregiving, hospice, and why she believes choosing a nonprofit hospice made all the difference.
When Suzy Snow and her brother, Rick, made a gift to Housecall Providers Hospice after the deaths of their parents, they knew exactly what they hoped their contribution could accomplish. “We feel we are paying it forward so that others will be able to have the support that we did when their time comes,” Suzy said.
That gift grew out of a journey that began months earlier on the Oregon Coast. Suzy and Rick’s father, Harold, was living with advanced heart failure while caring for their mother, Ann, who struggled with dementia. When caring for her became too much for Harold to manage alone, Suzy temporarily moved into their home to help. Then, their mom was diagnosed with stage IV bladder cancer.
Becoming a caregiver
Suzy’s days became consumed by caregiving. At night, she set alarms so she could help her mom safely get to the bathroom, sometimes waking five or six times before morning. “I could feel it starting to take a toll on my health,” she remembers. Harold could see it too. Eventually, he agreed that he and Ann should move to an assisted living community in Portland, closer to Suzy and additional support.
By then, Suzy and Rick already knew something about the kind of hospice they wanted. They had researched providers before choosing their father’s nonprofit hospice on the coast, and they wanted nonprofit care again in Portland.
“My brother and I knew we wanted to find a nonprofit hospice in Portland for our dad and mom,” Suzy said. From her extensive experience working with nonprofit organizations, Suzy understands that community-based organizations remain available only when communities value and support them. “Nonprofit work comes from the heart, and people who work in this arena usually have some personal experience in their own lives, or they simply have a calling to help others.” she said.
Choosing a nonprofit hospice
When a trusted professional organization recommended Housecall Providers Hospice, she invited the team to meet her parents and quickly felt they had found the right fit.
What followed made that choice deeply personal. Harold formed a close connection with his hospice nurse, Rob, who listened to his Coast Guard stories and treated him not simply as a patient at the end of life, but as a man whose stories, opinions and dignity continued to matter. The hospice team arranged equipment, explained medications, answered questions and helped Suzy let go of some of the responsibility she had been carrying.
“I thought hospice was mostly about taking care of the patient,” she says. “What I realized was that they take care of the family too.”
Taking care of the patient and taking care of the family
That meant she was able to step out of the role of caregiver and simply be her parents’ daughter. Rick continued traveling from the coast, sharing in the difficult decisions and precious moments with his sister. When their father died, Suzy and Rick were together at his side. Ann died five weeks later after receiving hospice care created around her own needs.
And that care did not end with their parents’ deaths. Suzy participated in hospice grief counseling, which helped her understand both the emotional and physical effects of grief. “I would tell anybody to take part in it,” she says. “It helped me so much.” For Suzy, that continuing support reinforced what she had come to understand about hospice—that caring well for someone at the end of life also means caring for the people who love them.
Their experience gave new meaning to something Suzy already believed, that strong community nonprofits exist because people choose to sustain them. Sometimes that means choosing their services or recommending them to someone else. When circumstances allow, it can also mean giving a gift.
“Giving what you can is important,” Suzy said, “but only if you can, of course.” For Suzy and Rick, their gift is a way to extend the care their family received beyond their own story. It is a thank you, but it is also something more. It is a way of helping ensure that when another family reaches one of life’s most difficult times, the support Suzy’s family found will still be there.