A place to heal

Many of those cousins became doctors, but when Cole was given an opportunity to fund and name a healing garden adjacent to the new Piedmont Fayette Cancer Center, he chose to honor a nurse — his mother, Janice Sams Cole — who passed away in 2006. The Cole Rainbow Garden is dedicated in her honor and is scheduled to open this spring.

Cole is a member of the board of directors of Piedmont Fayette Hospital and Piedmont Healthcare. The cancer center, which is expected to open in May, is close to his heart. He led the fund-raising efforts by example, following his family’s high standards for service to the community.

“Part of the garden will be on the roof of the multilevel building, so that patients who are receiving infusion will be able to look out on it,” he said. “It will be a healing, nurturing, welcoming place for people going through cancer treatments.”

Cole believes that the garden will help inspire patients.

“Some patients succumb to chronic illness, but Mom didn’t let illness define her,” he said. “She always looked forward to the best in every day.

“After my father died, she suffered from depression and learned the importance of getting outside yourself. She chose to look outward instead of inward, and set the example for all of us.”

Cole’s father, John Clement Cole Jr. died more than 50 years ago, leaving his wife, Janice, to raise three young sons on her own. She did that while working as a nurse after earning a degree from Emory University in 1947.

She later worked in her brother’s family practice with Geraldine Stinchcomb, the Fayette County Health Department’s first nurse.

“There was a lot of emphasis on serving your country in World War II and afterward, and she may have seen nursing as a way to answer that call to service,” Cole said. “But she was always very nurturing, with a desire to help others. Her mothering instinct was very strong, and those instincts were honed to perfection in nursing.”

After raising her children, Janice Sams Cole earned a master’s degree in psychiatric nursing from Emory University in 1973 and taught at the Medical College of Georgia’s School of Nursing.

“I was very proud of her and gave her a statuette of a girl in a cap and gown to commemorate that degree,” he said.

After retiring, she volunteered at the Christian City Alzheimer’s Cottage and at the Piedmont Fayette Hospital with her friend Stinchcomb.

“They’d drive over together,” Cole said. “Someone at the hospital would park their car, and help them into their wheelchairs. Mom was on oxygen then for pulmonary hypertension and emphysema.”

The two worked in the reception area, greeting patients and helping put together blood culture kits used in the emergency room.

“Despite their infirmities, or maybe because of them, they were so inspiring to others, always pleasant and sharing a smile and kind words,” Cole said.

They served more than 1,000 hours and received the hospital’s Spirit of Volunteerism Award for 2004-2005.

When Janice Sams Cole died at 82, the family buried her with her husband in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

“Our family drove back to the burial site a few days later and there in the sky was an unusual rainbow. It was upside-down, like a smile,” Cole said.

The family decided then to include a rainbow in the name for the memorial garden.

“A rainbow is God’s promise that he is going to love us and care for us after the storm,” Cole said. “My mom had a very strong spiritual faith and [she] loved plants.

“We wanted this garden to convey a sense of serenity and peace. We wanted to give hope to cancer patients.”