On Friday, November 20th, as students are travelling home for Thanksgiving break, WDBJ7 has just wrapped up a series on Hospice care. Why do a story on Hospice just before the Thanksgiving holiday, when people are striving to be positive and find things to be thankful for? Because Allison Parker was working on researching this story just before her murder this past August: it is her last piece of work, her legacy.
Allison Parker met with Nancy Hagerman from Good Samaritan Hospice, expressing the desire to connect her viewers with the Hospice program - not to depress them, but to dispel the myths that shroud the program. For instance, Miss Parker wished to communicate the improvement in the quality of life hospice gives through individualistic care. Hospice provides community, celebration of life, and an advocate of the value of patients' lives - and the value of legacy afterwards. Hospice provides families the comfort of knowing their loved ones will have a caring person by their side, twenty-four hours a day. Also, hospice provides support groups for grieving family members after the passing of a patient.
That was one of the most heartbreaking moments in the series as the evening anchor, Chris Hurst, Allison Parker's boyfriend, covered the evening installments. When previewing the next segment on Wednesday evening, Hurst said:
"That's the topic of Thursday’s segment of the Long Goodbye. We check back in with Russ Beimler as he meets with his support group. And I meet other people like me, who have lost the love of their life, and how we find comfort in each other."
It was a reminder that even though the murders of Allison Parker and Adam Ward happened over three months ago, the friends, family, and significant others who loved them, are still grieving, still missing, and - I think it's safe to say - still loving these special people. The coming of Thanksgiving only highlights the loss for everyone, including those with loved ones in hospice.
Perhaps that's a better explanation of why WDBJ7 chose to feature a story on hospice the week before Thanksgiving. There are hurting people who are not looking forward to the holiday, but by sharing the stories of others working through their own grief, of volunteers who work to bring dignity to death, and of those who are memorializing the ones they lost, WDBJ7 is sharing comfort.
Allison Parker did not get a quiet, dignified death, or her loved ones a long goodbye. The national media has long moved on to other stories, and the Paris attacks take precedence over the final story of a reporter. But in the hearts of those she touched with her hospice stories, as well as those she loved, Allison Parker has established a lasting legacy of caring for people. That, I imagine, would be the way she would want to be remembered.
