Imagine that you were a patient, lying in a hospital with a poor prognosis and only a few days to live. Your family is your entire world, and you have been looking forward to the birth of your first grandchild for months, only to find out that you will never get to meet her. You are trying to have strength for your family to let them know everything will be alright, but your world is shattered.

Now imagine you are this patient’s daughter, ecstatic that you are pregnant with your first child, but just found out that your mom has a limited number of days. All you can do is think about how your child will never get to meet their grandmother, never get to experience her love or her hugs. Never get to experience being spoiled by the love of Grandma. When this patient received her prognosis, Mary watched as the family tried to grasp their new reality, grieving for multiple reasons, including the future they had dreamed of.

Mary, being a mother and a newly made grandmother, knew she had to do something. She could only imagine how she would have felt if she were in her patient’s shoes and came up with an idea. Mary contacted child life specialists to come to the bedside and record the patient’s heartbeat so that her family could put it in a Build-A-Bear for the patient’s grandchild. With this gift, the patient’s grandchild would grow up hearing their grandmother's heartbeat and could feel her love by giving the stuffed bear a hug.

This is just one example of how Mary always goes above and beyond for her patients, spreading her love and compassion to not only the patient but their family.