For Kris Beers, his connection to Angela Hospice started with a phone call from Rory Moning, Angela Hospice Building Manager.
“Rory called me out of the blue, and I happened to answer the phone,” said Kris, who had recently moved to Livonia when Rory called.
The upcoming Arbor Day Ceremony was a week away and the company who had been hired to plant the trees had backed out. Learning that, Kris was happy to take a look, and he ended up planting all 10 trees before the ceremony. He believes getting that done on time was what got his foot in the door at Angela Hospice, a place he had never even heard of before Rory called.
“I really didn’t even know what hospice was,” Kris said. “And then, once I got there, I asked questions, and I met Sister Giovanni. She told me her story about what she wanted, what her vision was… I became interested in it and I became compassionate about it.”
As Angela Hospice has grown, so has Kris’s work around the campus. Over the last 26 years, Kris and his company, ABL Landscaping, have completed the water fountain by the Care Center, the new pavilion where the Tree of Life took place last year, and practically everything else on the outside grounds.
For Kris, part of what’s driven him for all these years to produce his best work is the reaction he gets from families coming to see a loved one in the Care Center.
“They constantly come out, when they see me working, and say, ‘You know, the grounds look beautiful, you’re helping make our experience better because it is so beautiful,’” he said.
There have been multiple moments with families that have brought Kris a lot of pride in his work, one sticking out immediately.
When Kris was working on the fountain located outside the Care Center – a project that took about three weeks – there was a gentleman he became close with who would chat with Kris every day. The man’s son was in the Care Center, around Kris’s age, and had ALS, a disease Kris was very familiar with because at the time, he had a good friend who also had ALS.
Then one day when Kris came in, Rory told him the man’s son had died. Kris was working when the man came and told him about his son. Then he hugged Kris.
“I couldn’t believe that this man was hugging me and apologizing for the fact that his son had passed,” Kris said. “He just wanted to thank me for being that listening ear. I’ll never forget that.”
It isn’t only the patients and their families at Angela Hospice who have had a major effect on Kris’s life, the staff has as well.
“I’ve seen so many people that do so many good things there, it touches my heart to see how dedicated everybody is that does what they do there,” Kris said. “It’s just a beautiful place, filled with a bunch of beautiful people.”
