Elder Jessie Darrough

Our caregiver support program, Precious Ones, is named for my grandmother, Elder Jessie Darrough, and for the greeting she gave nearly everyone she met.

"Well hello there, precious one."

It's the last thing I remember her saying to me with a full smile, the day I walked into her hospital room. She said it the way she always did, like she meant it completely, because she did. She believed, truly and without exception, that everyone deserved to be saved and that everyone was precious. It was the center of who she was as a scholar, as a minister, and as my grandmother.

The caregiver no one saw

In her last years, my grandmother spent her days caring for my grandfather, who is now 82. What none of us knew was that she was also quietly living with cancer of her own, without anyone present to help carry that weight for her. She kept showing up for him anyway, trying to heal someone else while she herself was slowly dying. I never knew how sick she was. If I had, I would have been there to care for them both.

When she passed, I stepped into the role she had carried alone. I became my grandfather's caregiver, and in doing so I understood, in a way I never had before, exactly what she had been holding by herself.

Why Precious Ones exists

Precious Ones is HVN'S HAVEN's caregiver support program, built so that no one has to do what my grandmother did: care for a loved one while unseen, unsupported, and alone. We walk alongside family caregivers with respite support, companionship, and practical help, so that caring for someone precious to you doesn't cost you everything to give it.

It's also part of why we're building the HAVEN app, so families can share the load of caregiving instead of carrying it alone, the way my grandmother had to.

She believed everyone was precious. This program, and this haven, exist so that caregivers know they are precious too.

In loving memory of Elder Jessie Darrough. With love, Sophia.