7 powerful photographs of terminally ill patients living out their final wishes
Before
54-year-old Mario passed away, he had one special goodbye he needed to say ...
to his
favorite giraffe.
Mario had worked as a maintenance man at the Rotterdam zoo in
the Netherlands for over 25 years. After his shifts, he loved to visit and help
care for the animals, including the giraffes.
As Mario's fight against terminal brain cancer came to an end,
all he wanted to do was visit the zoo one last time. He wanted to say goodbye
to his colleagues — and maybe share a final moment with some of his furry
friends.
Thanks to one incredible organization, Mario got his wish.

The Ambulance Wish Foundation,
a Dutch nonprofit, helps people like Mario experience one final request.
It's a lot like Make-A-Wish,
only it's not just for kids.
In 2006, Kees
Veldboer, who was an ambulance driver at the time, was moving a patient from
one hospital to another. The patient was a terminally ill man who had spent
three straight months confined to a hospital bed. During the trip from one
hospital to the other, the patient told Veldboer that he wanted to see the
Vlaardingen canal one last time. He wanted to sit in the sun and wind and smell
the water again before going back inside.

Veldboer made the patient's last wish happen, and as
tears of joy streamed down the man's face, Veldboer knew he had tapped into a
powerful way to bring peace to people in their final days.
Soon after, the Ambulance Wish Foundation was born.
Based in the Netherlands,
Veldboer's organization scoffs at the logistical hurdles of transporting
terminally ill patients who need high levels of care and, often, lots of
medical equipment. The Ambulance Wish Foundation employs a fleet of
custom-built ambulances and always has highly trained medical staff on hand for
emergencies.

Their message? Positive end-of-life experiences are far too
important to pass up.
Today, the AWF has over 230 volunteers
and has fulfilled nearly 7,000 wishes.
Even
more beautiful than the work this organization does, though, are the things its
patients are asking for.

The
Make-A-Wish Foundation specializes in granting wishes for children with
life-threatening illnesses, many of whom have barely begun to live. The
children's wishes run the gamut, from starring in a music video to a day as a hero soldier in the Army.
But
what does Veldboer do for older folks who have already experienced so much?
What do their wishes look like?
Mostly,
it's the little things they cherish, like seeing their home one last time or
spending a few hours just looking at something beautiful.
Veldboer,
in an
interview with the BBC, describes one woman who had not been home for six
months. When they brought her into her living room on a stretcher, she hoisted
herself up and stayed there for hours, doing nothing but looking around —
likely replaying an entire lifetime worth of memories — before quietly asking
them to take her away.
Another patient simply wanted to
see her favorite Rembrandt painting again.

And another
just wanted to spend an afternoon watching dolphins play.

On and on the wishes go — about four of them
fulfilled every day. People who just want to see their grandchild for the first
time, or stand on the beach again before they can't anymore.
Turns out that life's simplest
pleasures just might be its most meaningful.
Sometimes it feels like there's never enough time. Not in a day. Not in a year. Not in a life.

But maybe it's better to cherish what we have rather
than spend so much time thinking about all the things we haven't done yet.
Maybe the things we remember at
the end aren't the time we went skydiving or the time we hiked across Europe.
When our time is up, maybe what we'll remember most is more mundane — the tacky
wallpaper in the house we grew up in, a sunny day spent on the water, or those
little everyday moments spent with the people we love the most.
Whatever it is, it's comforting
to know there are people out there who want our last memories of this place to
be good ones.
I can't think of a more wonderful job.
Credits:
Upworthy