Marcy McCoy, a resident of Marquis Marian Estates, has been an avid gardener for as long as she can remember. In 1999, while on vacation from Key West, Florida, she visited the Oregon Gardens Spring when it first opened, “it didn’t have much in it.” She shared this story with Courtney, rehab director at Marian Estates, explaining how she and her husband, Mac, had planned to return one day. Unfortunately, he passed before that was made possible.

Courtney knew she needed to make this wish happen, as gardening was always Marcy and Mac’s happy place; so one day she drove Marcy to the Oregon Gardens. She pushed her wheelchair over 20 individual gardens across 80 acres, stopping frequently to take in all the beauty the gardens had to offer and admiring the flowers and waterfall.

The two sat in the shade, sipping on glasses of lemonade, taking time to step back and absorb the beauty in front of them. “The garden, it was beautiful,” Marcy said later. “It was a hot day, and that lemonade was perfect.”

They continued their adventure, stopping at the Wooden Nickel restaurant in Sublimity, Oregon, where Marcy ordered french fries and brown gravy for dinner, ending the memorable day perfectly.