Special touch adds bit of home

The Hospice House is beautifully decorated for the yule holiday by a volunteer.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF, Times Correspondent
Published December 24, 2007

Linda Harns poses in a room she decorated at a Gulfside Regional Hospice house in New Port Richey on Friday. It is one of two she decorated.
	[Zach Boyden-Holmes | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Zach Boyden-Holmes | Times] Gulfside Regional Hospice volunteer Jim Kanehl, 80, left, and Hospice chaplain Andy Anderson sing Christmas carols in one of the rooms Linda Harns decorated for the hospice house in New Port Richey. Kanehl's wife was in the hospice; she passed away April 22.

NEW PORT RICHEY - The holiday tree sparkles beneath a snowfall of white lights and shining glass ornaments. Feathers, wispy twigs and a holiday bow crown the top of the seven-foot tree, while clusters of beads and berries cascade down the evergreen branches. Greenery gilds the mantel and the dining table; more trees twinkle in the family room.

On the front door, a grapevine wreath garnished with a berry-red bow greets the families and nurses who come and go from the Gulfside Regional Hospice House on Lafayette Street in New Port Richey.

"When I first saw the decorations I couldn't believe it; they're so beautiful, I don't want to go home," says Cheryl Carpenetti, senior RN at the hospice's Lafayette House. "Our patients have told me how much they enjoy it, that they would have been depressed without it. This place is home, yet so much more than home."

A few miles down the road, Linda Harns, the volunteer who decorated the hospice house for the holidays, understands what those patients and their families are going through this season.

Her 78-year-old mother, Betty Tenuta, struggles in the final stages of Alzheimer's and now lives with Linda and her husband, Dave, in a converted guest bedroom their Holiday home.

This summer, Tenuta had what was most likely a mild stroke, Harns explains; it was a turning point. A few days before Christmas, she still hung on, though, Harns says there's again been a shift, an imperceptible decline that's hard to explain.

"Many things happen around the holidays - I don't know why," she said, fighting back tears. "I said, 'Mom, if you want to go now because you want to be with Dad for Christmas it's okay.' "

Despite her own sadness, Harns still found a way to take the edge off other's sadness at the Christmas season. One of the hospice nurses, Mitch Thompson, who visits the Harns' home regularly, noticed her knack for Christmas decorating, a skill she picked up while working in Chicago's Merchandise Mart. Her job for a floral showroom specializing in holiday decor taught her how to trim a tree with flair - something she has done in her own home year after year.

Thompson recalls being blown away,

"I walked in and said, 'Oh, you're house looks absolutely beautiful.' You could tell it was professionally done; just like when you walk into a big department store."

He told Harns how talented she was; he also told his bosses at Gulfside Regional Hospice.

Hospice staff asked her if she would decorate two of their three houses: the one on Lafayette Street and another, Hospice House at Sunset Bay, in New Port Richey.

Harns agreed.

"I've always loved Christmas; it was always a big deal, a fun time in our family. I wanted to give pleasure to people at Christmas who are away from their real homes."

She got to work a week after Thanksgiving. She shopped for trees and raided her holiday decoration boxes for berries, apples, snowflakes and swags of greenery. She made centerpieces, chose candles and ornaments and filled a tabletop sleigh with her own Christmas floral design. She also donated all the decorations.

"Linda is a magical person," says Linda Ward, president and CEO of Gulfside Regional Hospice. "Here she is, in her pain, able to give back to us. With her decorating, she has shaped the spirit of the holidays in our hospice houses."

The whole goal of and philosophy of the hospice is too give comfort, care and dignity to people experiencing "life-limiting" health issues, Linda Ward says. Their job is to be there for family and loved ones, helping the patient go through their journey, comfortable and free of pain.

At the holidays, it's the little things that make the hospice houses home:

It's Harn's beautiful gift of decorations and the guitar songs sung by hospice chaplain, Andy Anderson, says nurse Cheryl Carpenetti.

"It makes me cry," she says.

It's also the Christmas meal of ham, turkey and roast prepared by staff, she says, even the platter of holiday cookies made by a doctor's wife.

Anderson plays White Christmas on his guitar and sings bedside to patients without any other accompaniment. If a person is religious, he plays O Holy Night. Some people just want a simple secular song, like One Day at a Time.

Linda Harns' decorations, he says, just add to the warmth.

On Christmas night, the trees will sparkle in the house on Lafayette Street and the smell of turkey will drift through the rooms, stirring memories, bringing loved ones just a little closer.

"Her decorating brings back memories of childhood with family at a point in life where a lot of friends may be gone," Anderson says. "These decorations make people feel like they're at home - even when they're not at home."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com

[Last modified December 23, 2007, 21:47:34]