What Can I Say? A Guide to Visiting Friends and Family Who Are Ill

"What Can I Say?" is a clear, concise guide on how to communicate with friends and family who are ill. Illustrated with 16 photographs, this easy-to-read, 94-page book is both practical and inspiring.

"What Can I Say?" shows what works and what doesn’t work, to ease the pain, lift the spirit, and help people feel supported. It gives keys to approaching emotional situations with confidence, and avoiding the pitfalls of hospital visits. What Can I Say? is a thoughtful gift for any family that faces the challenge of a serious illness.

Karen and Simon Fox know the difference it makes to bring kindness and compassion to people who are ill. Together, this husband-and-wife team from Santa Barbara, California, has been involved for over 17 years in developing new kinds of patient care programs to deliver psychosocial support to people who are sick, lonely, or dying. Karen is a cancer survivor with more than 30 years of experience assisting patients and their families, both as a health care professional and as a volunteer. Simon is a former physicist with 25 years of experience in designing volunteer and adult education programs.

In 1985, Karen created the Adventures in Caring Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to alleviating the emotional distress and loneliness that often accompany a serious illness or injury. Awarded a Point of Light by President George Bush in 1991, Adventures in Caring is best known for the Raggedy Ann & Andy visiting Program, which lifts the spirits of patients and their families in 32 hospitals and nursing homes in California and other states, every week, all year round.

Dressing up as the characters Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy from the childhood storybooks and visiting those who are confined to bed or a wheelchair, volunteers provide a safe, non-threatening space for patients to feel accepted and talk about their experience. The Raggedys mostly listen, offering people who are alone and afraid the healing confirmation that someone cares. Karen chose the characters of Raggedy Ann and Andy because they are symbols of kindness and unconditional love—the very thing that we all reach for in a time of crisis.

There’s a fine art to bringing hope, easing tension, and giving encouragement to people who are suffering and feeling alone. It’s not so much the words you say as the love you put behind those words. Karen found this out when she first began to visit the sick and discovered the healing power of love, which today is the core of the Adventures in Caring training programs and services.