After a devastating accident, Irma and her family were bracing for the worst while preserving her memories in a special book made through BJC Hospice’s Lumina Life Review. But then Irma surprised everyone—including her doctors—by adding another chapter to her story.
In January 2023, 82-year-old Irma fell on her front steps as she arrived home from a shift at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where she worked as an interpreter and had once served on the auxiliary board. It was too cold for her neighbors to be out, so she lay critically injured on the freezing concrete just outside of her home for 18 minutes.
However, there was a silver lining on this dark day: Irma’s mail carrier had an unexpected schedule change that delayed his visit to her house until evening. He called 911, and Irma was rushed back to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where her doctors performed an emergency craniotomy to treat her injuries and save her life.
Irma’s long-term prognosis was not good. She was in the neuro ICU ventilated with a feeding tube. “They told my family that I was going to die,” Irma recalls. “And if I didn’t die, then I wasn’t ever going to be able to walk.”
After two weeks, Irma’s family decided to remove her from the machines in the ICU so that she could spend her last days in the comfort of BJC Hospice care at her daughter Maria’s house.
Finding a Light
Between Maria, family, and the BJC Hospice team, Irma had someone at her side 24/7. Maria, an oncology nurse at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, alternated between caring for her patients and her gravely ill mother, who was almost constantly awake due to the restlessness caused by her traumatic brain injury. Nevertheless, they bravely made the best of this difficult situation. BJC Hospice provided Irma with wheelchairs, a hospital bed, a music therapist, and an invitation to create something special through Lumina Life Review.
Offered at no cost to BJC Hospice patients and their families with support from generous donors, Lumina is a one-of-a-kind program that celebrates life in times of grief and loss by helping patients preserve their stories and values through tangible keepsakes, such as memory books, letters to loved ones, word clouds, family trees, and memory pillows and heartbeat bears made from patients’ clothing.
“Lumina is informed by research. It’s a two-piece program: life review and legacy creation,” says Eileen Spinner, MA LPC, a bereavement specialist and the Lumina program coordinator at BJC Hospice. “Everybody deserves the opportunity to look back on their lives to find meaning, purpose, and value—to realize that what they’ve done in this world is important and that they can carry their legacy forward. 
There’s science behind it. It gives patients a sense of meaning and purpose, carrying themselves forward in a special way for their loved ones. My volunteers and I listen to the stories and suggest what we can create for their loved ones.”
Maria had already experienced the impact of Lumina when Eileen helped create a memory book for her father-in-law during his time in BJC Hospice care. Now, she wanted to have the same keepsake for her mother. So, Eileen started coming to Maria’s house once a week to help create a memory book for Irma.
Their sessions with Eileen were joyful and sparked Irma’s long-term memories. She told stories, and they all laughed together. Eileen also left worksheets that Irma and Maria could complete throughout the week. Through those worksheets, Maria learned things she never knew about her mother, like that Irma’s earliest memory is bathing her cat and her favorite color is pink. “Then when I went to buy her new pajamas, I thought, ‘Oh! Her favorite color is pink!’ So, I got her pink leopard pajamas. I never knew!” Maria recalls.
Maria invited Irma’s friends and family, including her four other children who have all also worked at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, to add stories. She sifted through Irma’s meticulously organized photo collection to find “best of” photos. She even found a handwritten recipe for one of Irma’s favorite dishes. And she handed all of it to Eileen.
“I think the benefit is how Lumina guides people through it. You’re not on your own. Lumina isn’t asking us to make a book. You just give them the information so that they can make the book. Lumina has the resources, and they know what they’re doing,” Maria says. “All I did was give stuff to them.”
As the weeks turned into months, Irma surprised everyone by regaining significant strength. In May, she moved into Evelyn’s House, where she had attended the groundbreaking ceremony only a few years before—not for hospice care but to give Maria a 5-day respite to recharge after her months of intense caregiving. Amazingly, Irma got strong enough to leave hospice care entirely and move into a rehabilitation home that summer.
Sharing the Light
While Irma was healing, Eileen and her volunteers had been at work creating one of the biggest memory books in the history of Lumina Life Review, and Eileen enthusiastically hand-delivered it. “Irma is inspiring for us,” Eileen says. “I rarely get to see someone enjoy their own book.”
Woven from her and her loved ones’ memories, stacks of photos, and other keepsakes, Irma’s book tells the story of her life: her childhood in Colombia, her wedding, her career in dentistry, her volunteering, her travels, her children, her grandchildren, even her pets, and carefully researched genealogy. Irma enjoyed her memory book so much that she took it everywhere with her. “It makes me happy to read about my family doing things and accomplishing things,” Irma says. “It makes me very proud of them.”
The book is just as special to Irma’s family. Each of her children has a copy. Even her sister, a nun who still lives in Colombia, has a copy. 
“You might think it’s the last thing that you have time for, but Lumina met us where we were, and the outcome is priceless. It’s so valuable,” Maria says. “It was a healing process, and it’s a legacy. It’s something that lives on.”
But Irma’s story is not over. She not only regained her ability to walk but also her ability to live independently. She has moved back into the comfort of her own home, and the mailman who helped save her life still delivers her mail—often with a hug.
“Irma always said she hoped to get better. And she did! She said she wanted to volunteer, and, if nothing else, she said she would pray for others,” Eileen remembers.
Today, Irma is making new memories with her loved ones, and—just as she had hoped for during her darkest time—she volunteers. With rides from Maria, friends, and colleagues, Irma translates for Spanish-speaking patients at Siteman Cancer Center’s mobile mammography van.
“To be able to have this book and her is a miracle,” says Eileen, who calls Irma a miracle lady. “I told her that someday we’ll write an epilogue.”
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Written by Maren Leonard Libonn