Hospice program

spotlights remembrances

A memorial can be as simple as a rose on a gravesite or an urn on a mantel. For Daleville resident Linda Strange, a loving tribute is a six-day-a-week barbecue restaurant serving a small town busy highway interchange.

Strange opened her restaurant, Bird’s Smokehouse BBQ, last summer as a memorial to her late husband Donald Bird Strange. The couple had talked of opening a restaurant for nearly three decades, and had operated a small smokehouse trailer along Highway 67 in Daleville and at weekend fairs and carnivals since 2001.

Bird was diagnosed with brain cancer in July of 2004. When Bird passed away in March 2005, Strange decided that a fitting tribute would be to open the restaurant that had been the couple’s dream. The Smokehouse opened for business last June 5 “totally in Bird’s memory,” she said.

Remembering and paying tribute to loved ones—both living and in death—is the theme of Ball Memorial Hospice’s second annual Season of Hope event, scheduled for 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 22 at The Cancer Center at Ball Memorial Hospital.

Strange became acquainted with Cindy Julian, Ball Memorial Hospice Social Worker, when Bird began receiving hospice care about two months prior to his death. He had been staying in the oncology unit at Ball Memorial Hospital when his doctors determined his condition was deteriorating and that his family should consider hospice care.

Liz VanHooser, a nurse for Ball Memorial Hospice, was assigned to Bird and she and the family struck a bond that still endures.

“She’s a keeper, Bird told me,” said Strange of VanHooser. “She probably put him at more peace than anyone else could.”

“After Bird died, I would hear from Liz about every other week, and I always knew that if I needed to talk to someone, all I had to do was pick up the phone. If I hadn’t been so involved with the restaurant, I know that I would have done so.”

Strange was so invested with preparing the restaurant for its opening that it concerned some members of Ball’s hospice team.

“They thought that maybe I was too busy and not taking time to grieve. They thought that I should slow down and looking back, they were probably right.”

In the end, Strange’s devotion to her preserving her husband’s memory and legacy helped her pull through.

“A lot of people told me I was crazy, but I thought, ‘you don’t know if you don’t try,’” Strange said. “He has been with me every step of the way, and I believe with all my heart that has helped us be successful.”

“Hardly a day goes by when someone doesn’t come in who knew Bird, or went to school with him,” she said. “My goal and dream has really been fulfilled… he will never be forgotten.”

Besides nursing care and social work, hospice services also have counseling available to help survivors talk about their grief. Strange spoke of the assistance that Dave Baker, chaplain at Ball Memorial Hospice, gave to Reba, the couple’s daughter. Reba is currently a Ball State student and was a senior in high school at the time of her father’s death.

“Dave came to our house several times,” Strange said. “He just had this air about him that was non-threatening, a strong feeling of unconditional love, and he was very comforting to her.”

“She was hardly talking and dealing with a lot of anger, and he was able to get her to open up emotionally. He is probably the only one who ever did that. She’s like her dad, she’s very private. If she thinks her feelings are going to upset me, she will keep them to herself. I think Liz and Dave helped her understand that it was okay to be upset, or to cry in front of me.”

Thinking of the help she received coming to terms with her grief, Strange is grateful that she made the time for hospice in her life.

“The best way to put it is that I never felt alone,” she said. “Anyone that tries to go through (the death of a loved one) without hospice is either crazy, foolish or a combination of the two. I don’t know how anyone could do it otherwise.”

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