The palliative care team in the children’s and young people’s department at Sjællands Universitetshospital kept meeting bereaved parents who wanted a way to tell strangers they were in the middle of something. So the team designed a small wing-shaped brooch — gold, nickel, silver and black — carrying the words “Jeg har mistet”, I have lost someone. More than 1,000 have gone out to over 32 hospices, hospital wards and palliative teams across Denmark.
The country used to have this. Men wore a black armband, women wore black, and everyone else adjusted. Those signs disappeared, and grief became something you were expected to carry privately. A palliative nurse on the team puts it plainly: if you see a stranger in the supermarket wearing the wing and fumbling with the shopping, give them room. The hospital has not invented a custom so much as rebuilt an old one in a form people will actually wear.
So…:
What does someone need to know about your customer that nobody can see?
Source:
Picture:
Sjællands Universitetshospital (press)