A safe, comfortable, peaceful, home for those needing a place to stay and 24/7 compassionate care.

The Heart of Mary House (HOMH) was founded in 2022. It sits on the campus of St. Edward Catholic Church. It is a home for terminally ill people, but moreso, it is a refuge for souls. The people who enter the ‘blue door’ as a resident are in need of housing and 24/7 care. There are no geographical restrictions, although most of the residents come from the greater Nashville area. 

HOMH is the first home under the direction of the local non-profit corporation, Catholic Comfort Care Homes (CCCH). 

HOMH stands apart from St. Edward and the Diocese of Nashville, however, it is seen as a charity which is supported by St. Edward Church and managed by Catholic Comfort Care Homes. 

CCCH provides housing for the terminally ill throughout Middle Tennessee. It came to fruition out of an expressed and witnessed need. There are numerous people who, after an acute or chronic illness, find themselves admitted to the hospital and suddenly facing a terminal diagnosis needing to be discharged to a safe environment where someone will be able to care for them 24/7. The unfortunate scenario, time and time again, is that more people than the general public may realize, either have no family at all or do not have family capable of caring for the needs of someone at the end of their life. 

The overall mission of all homes under the direction of CCCH is to provide an inspirational, safe, comfortable, peaceful home-like setting for people in need, who are within the last three months of their lives.

Each resident is:

• under the medical care of a hospice agency
• has a DNR
• has a prognosis of three months or less. 

The residents are either not able to remain in their own homes or have no home at all. The residents may not have family who are able to care for them during this time, or their family may be experiencing circumstances that make it too difficult to provide the care the resident needs. Admission is based on need regardless of race, gender, religion, or age. CCCH is a Catholic organization, and all homes under its direction also uphold the teachings of the Magisterium. 

Founder and executive director, Kim Derrick, worked as a hospice nurse in a variety of capacities over the last several years and most recently as a hospice liaison. In this role she worked closely with case managers within the hospitals trying to find placement for people with a prognosis of days to weeks. Unfortunately, Medicare does not provide assistance with housing costs, nor do they provide assistance to families when they are faced with caring for a terminally ill family member. There may not be enough time or resources to apply for Medicaid, nor a facility who would be willing to take in a patient who is both on medicaid and receiving hospice. There are so many factors that affect such a fragile and vulnerable time in these peoples’ lives, and sadly, often there are zero other options for these folks.

God planted a seed in Kim’s young heart to accompany and care for the sick and dying as an adult.

Kim was raised in a family in which the members surrounded one another in all the joys and sorrows of life, including death. She didn’t realize until adulthood that this was not every person’s experience.

As a hospice nurse it broke Kim’s heart that there were so many people poor and dying who had nowhere to go.

With the help of Saint Edward Church in Nashville, TN and others who shared in her desire to help the poor and dying, Kim created “The Heart of Mary House” to love God’s children during their final days as Our Blessed Mother would want.

This compassionate episode is about a woman who Mary Anne grew to love and yet never heard speak her name. It’s about a broken medical system that truly left this woman completely desperate and at death’s door. Yet, when all options were completely exhausted, a simple basement full of love in Nashville Tennessee was sent via a special friend in Oklahoma.

Though the basement is simple, the love of Christ oozes out of every cinder block in those three large rooms. Mary Anne describes how she sees the hands and feet of Christ from the moment she walks in. He is there. The heart of heaven resides in that small basement on Thompson Lane.

This Dementia Doula is forever changed and honored to have cared for this special friend and her family. Life and death will never look the same way again. In those final nine days, even in death, Mary Anne’s friend showed her what life is truly about. This is what genuine compassion looks like. This old song says it best:

“ What the world needs now is love, sweet love

That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of…”

Except for a small basement on Thompson Lane in Nashville, it’s full of that love!

This week’s episode is part two of episode 25 of the Aging, Angst & Alleluias Podcast “A Dementia Doula’s Blessing from the Basement.”  Experience the “alleluias” from that nine-day stay in the basement for host, Mary Anne Oglesby-Sutherly’s special friend, Diane. This is a resource of magnitude for those living with dementia and those at the end of life.

Kim Derrick, Founder and Director of The Heart of Mary House in Nashville, TN. shares her exceptional story with a happy ending about her mission to help those at the end of life find a peaceful, loving environment to make their sacred passage.  Her mission in life as a hospice nurse led her to find a different approach to caring for those who had nowhere else to turn. Kim’s heart, her care and her mission is truly comforting and compassionate for her patients and their loved ones. The Heart of Mary House is changing how end of life looks for those in desperate need, coming from a simple oasis in a cinder-block basement.

As volunteers and residents alike enter through the bright blue door of the new hospice house on the campus of St. Edward Church and School, they are entering straight into the “Heart of Mary.”

St. Edward is partnering with hospice nurse Kim Derrick, founder and director of ministry for the Heart of Mary House, to see the answer to a long-time need come to fruition…

Conversations with Kim Derrick

The Heart of Mary House is the first home started by Catholic Comfort Cares Homes, a local non-profit that I started in September of 2022. Our homes are for the dying poor in our community. We house and provide 24/7 care at zero cost to the resident or their family. We do not bill insurance, nor do we accept any government funding. We are 100% donation based and rely on the generosity of volunteers to supplement the round-the-clock care that we provide.