Planning activities dedicated to caregivers in hospice and vegetative state wards is a complex challenge. Each caregiver manages visits around their own commitments, often with just enough time to sit beside their loved one. Added to this is a pervasive sense of guilt — the perception of never devoting enough attention to the family member. The key lies in offering flexible and personalized spaces: individual sessions with an elastic schedule and group activities designed to be accessible at any time.
Sara, Mario’s wife: a life of devotion
Sara is seventy years old and profoundly devoted to her husband Mario, with whom she has shared a full life. Their vision of a serene retirement was shattered ten years ago, when the stroke left him in a vegetative state. Since then, despite the weight of a large family, Sara has never stopped visiting him every other day.
On her face one reads the signs of exhaustion. Every visit is a relentless attempt to evoke a response — through basal stimulation, music, words, images. This search represents her need to keep alive a bond that risks dissolving under the weight of reality.
I suggested she imagine places where she might “take” Mario — places where they could find serenity together. With brushes and colors, Sara began painting tranquil landscapes: each painting is an emotional refuge, a testimony to the bond that continues to exist. The journey, begun two years ago, is still ongoing. Through art therapy, Sara has found a means of processing loss, constructing an imaginary reality that does not deny the pain but transforms it into a silent dialogue, a gentle illusion that allows her to carry on.
Antonio, Nunzia’s son: the collapse of a maternal pillar
Antonio is forty years old and visibly fragile. Since his mother’s illness worsened, his world has begun to crumble. For him, Nunzia has always represented a pillar of stability — a constant point of reference. Despite an outwardly independent life, with a job and a stable relationship, the equilibrium on which he had built his existence has broken.
In the therapeutic journey, Antonio showed me a project he had been developing at home: a micro-world, a rather large scale model that he constructs with meticulous care. Every detail — from the miniature buildings to the trees — is attended to with precision, requiring hours of patient labor. Antonio devotes his nights to this micro-world, so as not to interfere with his daily obligations.
This is not merely a pastime: it is a psychological refuge, a place where he can recover control and order when everything seems chaotic. The construction represents an emotional container in which his most vulnerable part can feel held and protected. Each element added is a step toward the processing of his fears.
A crucial turning point was the introduction of new presences within the model — figures representing real people who might become points of reference. This creative act marks a moment of autonomy: Antonio begins to recognize his own worth as a figure capable of offering protection to himself. The journey, lasting three months, marked a significant transformation. What had begun as a small solitary project evolved into a bridge toward re-engagement with relationships.
Luisa, Giacomo’s mother: a mother’s visceral pain
I must first underscore how deep and devastating the pain of a mother caring for a son in a vegetative state can be. The hope of an awakening never dies. No words exist that can console such visceral suffering, nor any vista that can divert a mother’s attention from the expectation of her child’s revival. For Luisa, fifty years old, this reality has been a constant companion for eleven years.
Every other day she travels to the facility, even though her body sends signals of extreme exhaustion. Her determination does not waver, but the absolute devotion exacts an enormous toll that manifests in guilt and nearly unbearable fatigue.
In the therapeutic journey, art therapy — with collage as the primary medium — offered her a means to explore and communicate her inner experience, composing fragments of images and materials to give form to emotions that words could not express.
The guilt, rooted in the conviction that she must be constantly present for her son, often leads Luisa to postpone sessions. Every moment granted to herself is perceived as a distraction from her duty as a mother. And yet, these creative works are gradually becoming a refuge — a place to gather and lighten the weight she carries on her shoulders. Each collage is a step toward accepting that dedicating time to herself does not mean neglecting her son, but finding the energy to continue being there.
Tuesday afternoons: textile art therapy
It is Tuesday afternoon when I enter the ward. Several women are waiting for me, accompanied by their loved ones in wheelchairs. These weekly gatherings are the fruit of a three-year journey, a space of textile art therapy where one sews, mends, embroiders, weaves, knits, and crochets.
The group is composed of women between fifty and seventy years of age who come together to share updates on their loved ones’ conditions, creating an occasion of quality for spending time and offering mutual support. Coffee and biscuits are served, and I note down the narratives, the works produced, the nuances of their emotional states.
The space in which we work is not enclosed but a passage between the two wards. The protective function is not external: it develops within the group and through my presence. The handwork becomes a vehicle for symbolic expression — a process of recomposing one’s inner life, of caring for oneself. While the hands are occupied with weaving and sewing, a process of inner repair is set in motion.
These gatherings offer a space for contact not only with others, but with one’s own emotional history, allowing for a therapeutic experience that renews itself with each meeting.