We're grateful for: Jeremiah, a former St. Jude patient, for his vision of the Hope Garden
Jeremiah Godby was 6 years old and planning his own funeral. In 1991, when he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with a rare Philadelphia chromosome mutation, there was little likelihood of survival.
Jeremiah Godby was 6 years old and planning his own funeral. In 1991, when he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with a rare Philadelphia chromosome mutation, there was little likelihood of survival.
St. Jude doctors suggested an experimental bone marrow transplant, and Jeremiah told his parents he wanted to try it. His 3-year-old brother provided the match.
Years later, healthy and thriving, Jeremiah came back to St. Jude for a visit. He was a college student studying landscape architecture and noticed there was no outdoor space for families to gather for spiritual healing.
So he proposed one — what we know now as the Hope Garden on the St. Jude campus in Memphis.
"The idea that you can come to St. Jude, be healed, leave healed, that's the main component of the garden," he said. "You can enter the labyrinth at one point, walk it, say a prayer, become spiritually healed, and then exit the labyrinth. It's symbolic of what patients have to go through, the journey."
