For years, Ed had not felt the sun on his face or the forest air in his lungs. Illness had kept him confined to an adult family home, where even the simplest trip outdoors had become impossible. Yet inside him lived the memory of a different life — one filled with pine needles, mountain trails, and endless sky.

Ed had once been a forest ranger. The wilderness wasn’t just his workplace; it was his soul. To live without the outdoors was, in a way, to live without breath. So when Evergreen Health Hospice Chaplain Curt Huber sat with Ed and asked him what he still longed for, his answer was immediate and simple: “I just want to go outside again.”

Curt took that wish to heart. He shared it with the hospice team, and together they began to wonder: how could they make this happen for a man who could no longer walk, who had been indoors for years? Then someone suggested an idea — what if the local fire department could help with transportation?

A phone call was made to Snohomish County Fire District in Edmonds. The answer was immediate: yes.

On a crisp March morning, Ed was lifted gently into an EMS vehicle. Behind him, a fire truck followed. Alongside him came Chaplain Curt, RN Case Manager Leigh Gardner, and members of the fire department — all united by one mission: to give Ed back, even if only for a day, the world he had once cherished.

Their destination was Meadowdale Beach Park, a place where forest and sea meet in quiet beauty. The team wheeled Ed along the trails, stopping often. They picked sprigs of greenery, crushed needles and leaves gently in their hands, and held them to Ed’s face so he could breathe in the forest. They let him listen to the rustle of trees, the rhythm of distant waves, the laughter of birds overhead.

And in those moments, Ed’s face lit up. His eyes sparkled with something that looked very much like youth. For a man who had once patrolled mountains and valleys, who had called the wilderness his home, this was not just an outing. It was a homecoming.

The professionals who walked with him that day were just as moved. Hospice workers are often asked if their jobs are depressing, surrounded as they are by illness and loss. But stories like Ed’s show a different truth: that there is profound joy in giving dignity, comfort, and beauty to those at life’s end.

Diane Fiumara, North Team Program Manager, put it simply: “I want to thank my fantastic North Team for their love and dedication to the patients they serve.”

On that day, love was expressed not in words, but in action: firefighters carrying a man back to the woods he once protected, caregivers bending low to place pine needles beneath his nose, friends walking beside him as though he were still the ranger leading the trail.

Ed’s wish was fulfilled. His spirit touched the outdoors once more. And in the quiet of the forest, gratitude rose like prayer: thank you for the trees, thank you for the sun, thank you for the chance to remember who I am.