Hospice volunteer Dave Timothy has donated more than 200 volunteer hours in the last year casting the hands of hospice patients to make keepsake gifts for surviving family members.
Dave Timothy
Recently he helped a mother and father create molds of their hands joined with their six-year-old daughter and produced detailed reproductions of each parent holding the daughter’s hand.
Even though the young patient had limited control of her arms and hands, the casts were some of the best Dave has ever produced.
“The way the girl’s hand and their hands were together—it really was so sweet,” Dave says. “I think it conveys a sense of love and dependency and parenting.”
When Dave arrived at their home, he explained the technical aspects of the project to the mother. Dave uses alginate—a product made from algae—to create the molds. The product is like what dentists use to make molds for dental work.
The mother practiced positioning herself and daughter to join hands and place them into the bucket that would hold the molding material.
After Dave mixed the powdered alginate with warm water and poured it into the bucket, he positioned the bucket under their hands. They dipped their hands into the liquid and kept still for about five minutes.
The daughter, who was suffering with a progressive disease, looked uncomfortable, but her mother gently and patiently guided her daughter with her voice and touch throughout the process.
“Dave does such a good job with these families and patients,” says Gretchen Skelly, a hospice social worker. “They all really appreciate him.”
Dave considered pursuing art as a profession and took art classes at the University of Utah, but he eventually earned a master’s degree in social work. After he retired, he found a listing for an Intermountain Hospice volunteer to produce hand casts.
“When I saw this volunteer opportunity come up, my exact thought was ‘Wow, I can be a social worker and an artist at the same time,’” Dave says.
Alginate hardening into molds
When he returns from a hospice visit with the buckets of hardened alginate, he prepares the molds to ensure any stray pieces are removed. Then he works quickly to fill the molds with a plaster-like product and leaves them to dry for four to 12 hours.
The most exciting part of the process for Dave is carefully peeling away the alginate to reveal the cast of the hands with all its unique details—wrinkles, jewelry, fingerprints. Dave can spend up to five hours on a single mold, cleaning away the alginate, sculpting, and repairing any imperfections.
“It makes me a little anxious because I want it to be really good,” Dave says. “It’s important because when somebody sees them, it brings back certain emotions. We’re talking about human relationships and the end of life.”
Intermountain Hospice in Salt Lake has offered hand casts of deceased pediatric patients for some time. But they’re expanding this experience for living hospice patients of all ages.
“Dave’s given us this opportunity to not wait until after death but to go into the home while they’re still living,” says Amanda Clark, hospice volunteer coordinator. “Not only do they have the experience of doing the mold together and creating that memory, but then they also will have the memento after they pass away, too.”
“I’m trying to get away from doing postmortem casts as much as possible in favor of doing them while they’re still alive,” Dave says. “It becomes more of a symbol of a bond versus a broken bond.”
Hospice social workers are offering this experience to hospice patients who are mothers with children at home. Each point of care—creating the molds and delivering them—can open communication for these families.
In one family the son was “initially reluctant to speak with me and even be in the room when I came,” Gretchen says. “While we did the hand molds, we were able to talk some. And then when I brought them to the family, he was so happy with the gift and began to open up. The next visit he and I talked, and he was able to process some emotions about anticipatory grief. His mom is still with us, and he’s still willing to talk with me, which seems to be helping him prepare for her passing.”
“This extra work the volunteers do just elevates the level of care; it touches and softens our patients’ hearts,” Amanda says. “We’re just strangers coming into their houses at the most difficult time of their lives. It’s hard to trust. It’s hard to want to open up to complete strangers. What Dave does opens doors. It opens their hearts. It’s priceless.”
When Dave presented the finished casts of the young daughter and her parents in a memory box, the family was very appreciative and commented on the detail they show.
“We took them up to the room where their daughter was lying in bed and showed them to her,” Dave says. “She looked at them and smiled, at which point her father said, ‘We got a smile.’”
“I’m just grateful that after retirement, I have an opportunity to still make a difference in people’s lives,” he says.