Richard Tyson is like most dads. He adores his children, "picks on" his grandkids and dotes on them at the same time. However, beyond the fond stories, Tyson's eyes still glaze over with long-held grief as he speaks of his daughter, who passed away almost 30 years ago.

Today, he and his wife Rose volunteer with Liberty HomeCare & Hospice Services in Wadesboro, in honor and in memory of their lost daughter and one still living daughter, who is now a nurse.

The Tysons' twin daughters, Jamie and Janie, were born June 22, 1963. "They were identical in every way," Tyson said. "We, of course, had the fun of bringing them up as young children and keeping them in church, guiding them as best we could."

Just before Thanksgiving in 1979, the girls' 16th year, Jamie was diagnosed with cancer. "They did surgery, said they couldn't do anything for her, sent her back home," he recalled. "The seventh of January, they called us back and said, 'Hey, we think we can do something for her.' So they did go in and remove the lung. It was outside the lung cavity; it was between the upper part of her lung and the upper part of that cavity. It wasn't in the lung itself."

Although the surgery was successful, by April, the cancer was back, and larger than before. "They advised us that she would actually suffocate, as opposed to the cancer just taking her away gradually," Tyson said.

In August, after seeing specialists in Chapel Hill for about a week, Jamie came home, although her doctor had encouraged her to stay in Chapel Hill. "She said, 'No, I want to go home,'" Tyson said. "We took her home. We didn't have hospice, we didn't have any help in those days, not here anyway. It got so bad that she was swelling in her abdominal area. It got so bad that I called the practitioner that actually discovered the cancer. She came over and gave her all the medication she could. But she woke me up at 5 in the morning and said, 'Daddy, I need to go to the hospital.' Long story short, she lived seven more days."

The family trudged along after the loss of Jamie and twin sister Janie eventually went on to pursue nursing, after her textile job was sent out of the country, Tyson said.

"One evening, one Sunday, she had to go to a patient that was passing away," he recalled. "The hospice chaplain was in the midst of his Sunday evening worship service. I had been in the Gideons for 19 years and had done a lot of lay speaking. She asked if I'd be willing to have prayer with him, so I did. I saw a need that I didn't really realize existed."

Later, Liberty Hospice approached Tyson and his wife and asked if they would be interested in volunteering. "I thought I could do something for Jamie's memory and at the same time, do something to help some of the patients that Janie was working with, and it's just been a blessing," Tyson said.

The couple has now been volunteering for three years.

"You go through trying times, you learn from those times and then God gives you an opportunity to give back in return for what he's given you," he said. "He's really blessed me."

Tyson usually prays with hospice patients, or reads scripture to them. Sometimes he even cooks special dishes for them, if they request it. "One thing I never say is, I never say 'everything's going to be all right.' We don't give them false hope. But we do let them know that there is something that's greater than any of us. There is a better place."

Although Tyson now lives in Ellerbe in Richmond County, he has strong ties to Anson County. Both Jamie and a stillborn son, James Richard Tyson Jr., are buried at Red Hill Baptist Church. And Rose Tyson's first hospice patient was in Ansonville.

"It's not only a way to honor Jamie's memory, but also a way to honor Janie's profession," Tyson said. "I'm very proud of them both."