Friday, September 23, 2011

Smile Delivery

yellow Lab in rose garden

Lira is the career change dog of GDB volunteer Sally Blake. She has a new career -- as a therapy dog. The following is from Sally's blog, which also includes audio:

Lillie went home today. I have watched this very sick little 5-year-old Hispanic beauty live at the hospital for the last couple of months. I have watched hospital staff treat her like one of their own taking her on wagon rides around the ward, teaching her one English word a day (one day, the word was "glamorous" to go with her princess motif) and letting her just hang out at the nurses' station with them for hours. These nurses are angels in my mind and heart.

Imagine this… a little girl sitting cross-legged on the bed attached to a multitude of tubes, petting Lira who is on the bed with her. Her hair done perfectly by her mother: two little shoulder-length pony tails with different colored rubber bands every couple of inches. Whenever she saw Lira she would smile from ear to ear framing chubby cheeks. This smile can only be described as a joyful brightening of our world. A tiny youngster who understandably was cranky some days and a precious little girl who definitely always knew exactly what she wanted.

What a blessing it was to happen to walk in as she and her family were preparing with the hospital staff to go home. What a joy it was to see this kind of happiness shining through every pore of her being.

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