Paved Over Garden

While employed at Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania, there was a small courtyard area. It was rectangular, approximately fourteen by twenty feet, a grassy garden area of flowers and beauty. It was tended by volunteers of the community and eventually claimed as the garden honoring their children that had passed away all too early. The “Children’s Garden,” was given the love and tenderness that the parents could no longer lavish on their child. Weeding, mowing, trimming, planting, adding pavers, markers of remembrance, and benches, they made it a quiet oasis for hospital staff, visitors, and where those parents could feel close to their children.

Its location was near the front entrance and adjacent to the outpatient surgery center and operating room. The quiet space of the garden was a great spot for people to relax and feel less stressed while a loved one was in surgery.

Thursday, I drove a friend into the hospital for a procedure. While I sat in the waiting area, I noticed that the garden was gone. The new management decided to relocate it, paving over it to expand the coffee shop. When I inquired, “was it gone?” I was informed it still existed but had been moved to the rear of the hospital. The garden was now out of sight and not easily accessible to visitors. It had been tucked away where it is mostly overlooked or forgotten. I’m sure the parents still lovingly care for the garden, but it is no longer the bright asset that it once was.

Another area that seems to have disappeared from the hospital is the chapel. The volunteer couldn’t answer whether it remained. All of the items of the old chapel were donated by local businesses and citizens. It seemed the Bible, brass cross, candlesticks, stained glass side panels, oak kneeler, and pews were no longer important. The chapel had been a quiet sanctuary and respite from the stress of the hospital for patients, visitors, and staff.

Instead, the management chose to build a grand, expansive entrance hall. The huge room is rarely used and has lost all of the intimacy and privacy of the chapel. It serves no real vital function other than to impress. As so often happens when a small entity is swallowed up by a larger one, it becomes their way of improvement without actually surveying the needs of the smaller unit. Frick’s once family feeling of staff and customer has decreased and much was lost. But because of the central core of workers and the community, the human touch remains.