This story begins in the late '80s when Andy Kritz, a land surveyor, began feeling numbness in his hands and so much fatigue he'd practically sleep through the weekends.

He figured the numbness had something to do with his work on a computer keyboard. He thought he was tired from the stress of his job. When his eyesight started to go, well, Mr. Kritz was getting older.

"Every symptom I had was attributed to something else," he told me from his bed in the Oakland apartment he shares with his wife, Darlene Kelley.

After other maladies were ruled out, he was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis in 1990. In the years since, he has gone from cane to walker to wheelchair. For the past year and a half, he has been bedridden, a quadriplegic. But his voice is strong and his mind is sharp and he isn't looking for sympathy.

"I went through a bout of depression," he said, "but it didn't make me feel any better. I still had MS."

He and Darlene have been married 28 years. They invited me to their home, along with a handful of people from VITAS, the multi-state provider of the hospice care that saved him from going into a nursing home.

VITAS is always looking for volunteers whose talents might be shared with the patients. One is Jacquelyn Cynkar, a freelance photographer who shot the portrait you see with this column. It's part of a collection that she presented to Andy and Darlene as a gift.

Ms. Cynkar, of Swisshelm Park, is more than seven months pregnant with her third child but she still made time for this. She came to photography relatively late, having previously been a researcher in cognitive psychology, but sees photography as another way to explore the human condition.

She spent a couple of hours with them toward the end of June and, she said, what she got out of the experience was at least as much as she put in.

"Their love radiates," she said.

Indeed, it filled the room.

That's the experience of many said Vanessa Everette, manager of volunteer services for VITAS.

"They almost feel guilty they get so much out of it," Ms. Everette said of her volunteers.

Before the morning was through, Mr. Kritz, his wife and I spoke of a lot of things: his boyhood in Norvelt, the planned community of subsistence farmers in Mount Pleasant Township in Westmoreland County; how he and Darlene met when both were students at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh after he'd gotten out of the Army; the frustrations of being a Pirates fan. (She reads him the first paragraph of every Pirates story and then he tells her if he wants her to keep going.)

But they're private people and would prefer the focus of the story be on the VITAS volunteers.

"We really hit the mother lode when we hooked up with VITAS," Mr. Kritz, 54, said. "It's been a great experience. Nice pictures, too."

VITAS has more than 100 patients in eight Western Pennsylvania counties. Prospective volunteers should contact Ms. Everette at 412-799-2101. A new program, Project Storykeeper, will train volunteers to tape oral histories from patients who seek a permanent record of their memories.