Valentines Day is a special event at UCLA Medical Center. Traditionally, the dogs in the People Animal Connection deliver gifts and hand made cards to patients and staff. Decked out in festive attire, they bring the holiday to the hospital.
On one occasion, Gus and his valentine Lola rode around in a red wagon filled with cards. Just last February, which now seems so long ago, Gus and his buddies Tommy and Finley cheered up an adolescent girl who’d been in and out of the hospital for years. Who would ever have believed that would be one of our last visits before COVID-19 shut down their in-person cuddles.
This year, sadly, the visits had to be virtual. On the bright side, they were going to include Dodgers and robots. As a huge fan, I’ll settle for even virtual Dodgers. Wasn’t sure about the robots.
Since it was going to be on Zoom, my first concern was how do we dress to impress.
ELBEE Seriously?
Should we go with traditional valentine ensembles? Dodger blue? Robo chic?
ELBEE She googled “robot chic.”
On the big day, I settled on Dodger blue with valentine accents. Unfortunately, 
when I signed on, my only Dodger contact was a virtual glimpse of a player’s face as a robot in a blue and white shirt rolled by.
ELBEE I am so confused.
We spent the morning visiting patients on iPads with Paula, her dogs Windy and 
Georgia, plus Abbey and Gus’s valentine Lola.
GUS Lola looked fabulous.
This all sounds so crazy but it’s the norm right now. We stopped in to see a few toddlers and then a slightly older boy who understood what was going on better than I did. At least we were able to bring a little happiness to the kids, their parents and the staff.
In the afternoon we had a holiday Zoom meeting for the UCLA volunteers. As part of the presentation, Jen from PAC did a slide show of special valentine moments with the dogs, past and present.
I couldn’t help but smile as the photos, set to music, rolled by. Then I had a deeper emotional response. I wanted so badly to bring Gus and Stanley into the hospital to make the toddlers giggle. I also thought about Valentines Days with Charley and Elbee.
More important than all of the costumes and cards is the unconditional love of the dogs. Let’s hope that next year the in person presence of our canine cupids will light up the halls again.
