Volunteer Holly Shifrin Sews Memories with Patient Elizabeth

Holly Shifrin, a volunteer who’s been serving with Hospice for six months, has known how to sew since she was a child. “My mother taught me,” she recalls. She didn’t imagine that it was a skill she would use in keeping a hospice patient company, but that’s just what happened with 98-year-old Elizabeth.

Volunteer coordinator Dianne asked if there was anyone who could help Elizabeth sew, and I was more
than happy to do it,” Holly says. Now, Holly visits Elizabeth’s home once a week, where she brings her sewing machine to create blankets out of patchwork squares that Elizabeth cuts. Each blanket is made of rows of three-inch squares, clipped from Elizabeth’s vast fabric collection. The blankets go to her grandchildren – and
sometimes smaller ones go to great-grandchildren’s dolls. Elizabeth, Holly says, is very “focused” throughout their two-hour sessions. The work gives her something tactile to do. Her family, additionally, whom Elizabeth is close to, reports that the sewing projects have lightened her mood. “She has been more engaged and happy,” Holly says.

Holly also helps her make fabric Christmas ornaments as gifts. Elizabeth traces the ornament shapes – such as stockings and Christmas trees – on colorful fabric to be cut out, sewn together, and stuffed. Between the ornaments and the blankets, Elizabeth’s family will have these handmade keepsakes as unique reminders of her.

Some of the fabric, Holly says, is clipped from old clothing items that hold special memories. Holly admires Elizabeth’s involvement with her family, and has come to look forward to their time together. The opportunity to sew and serve has been good for both of them: “I really enjoy it,” she says.