Health

12 HE ALTH • Winter 2019 A fter Virginia Thurston died of breast cancer in 1999, her widower remembered how much the gardens around their home in Harvard gave her comfort during her illness. Bill Thurston wanted to give solace to others with similar cancer battles, • By Grant Welker PHOTO/GRANT WELKER Healing Garden in Harvard has outgrown its name and helped thousands of cancer survivors Focused on nature so he donated a portion of their property and a cottage to create the Virginia Thurston Healing Garden to serve women with breast cancer. Nearly two decades later, the Healing Garden has evolved into a place where anyone fighting cancer can participate in a meditation, yoga, knitting or writing class, or take part in group mindfulness session or another on living a life of meaning. The acres of gardens from which the center gets its name are still there. Otherwise, the quiet location – anyone not closely looking for the driveway is bound to miss it – has gained an important role in the area as one of few places where cancer patients can turn to get better in a way not involving medical treatment. "Without them, I probably wouldn't be here right now," said Alice Daugherty of Royalston, who turned to the Healing Garden during a battle with breast cancer. Daughtery, who has recovered and gave birth early this year to a son, Owen, found the center to be just what she needed to balance the western medicine she was receiving at the Dana-Farber Center Institute in Boston and the eastern medicine her Taiwanese family insisted upon. "We're really focused on nature and being sensory-driven," said Meg Koch, the garden's executive director. Early roots Bill Thurston came up with the plan for the garden with Betsy Tyson- Smith, a psychotherapist and the facilitator of his late wife's hospital support group. He wanted to both honor his wife and support other cancer patients, and Tyson-Smith developed the idea into a center to offer complementary therapies, psycho-social support and the healing environment of nature. The center, while evolving over the last two decades, has stayed true to its founders' vision. Located down a wooded driveway on Bolton Road south of the town center, the garden is purposefully the opposite type of environment from what can be a cold and sterile conditions in a hospital or medical office. Even after two acres were donated for the Healing Garden – along with seed money to get the organization off and running – the gardens still required 10 years of work and more funding to get established, with benches and rock outcroppings in some areas, along with a pollinator's garden and sculptures that dot the property. "They can ref lect in the peace they find with nature," Koch said. Medical facilities, she added, can be a trigger for cancer patients, even the act of walking into a medical building sometimes stirring panic. The Healing Garden's business manager, Alison Peterson; executive director, Meg Koch; co-direc- tor of integrative care Brianne Carter; and director of develop- ment Maddie Phadke.

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