Father and son sweep sweet, snowy message to mom in hospital

Everybody needs encouragement, especially when they aren't feeling their best.

A father-son team of do-gooders wrote a heartwarming message to their wife-mom on the top floor of a snow-blanketed parking garage near Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

The message was spotted by surgical ICU nurse Angela Washek, who snapped a photo. The image was tweeted by Rush and inspired a follow-up by CBS Chicago:

“Saturday night we saw people on the roof running around. We didn’t know what was going on and about half an hour later I looked out and there was this big message out there,” Washek says.

She adds: “It was really heartfelt. It was a lot of effort and it was really cold that night. And those letters are huge. They’re about two car lengths’ long.”

Yahoo News spoke with Deb Song, spokesperson for the medical center. After a bit of detective work, Song said she was able to track down who left the message.

"I put out a call to each of the units that would face the parking garage. I hit a hole-in-one when I made a call to the hematology unit on the top floor."

Song explained that the message was intended for patient Sharon Hart. It was created by her husband and their 14-year-old son, William, who came up with the idea. At first, he and his father just wrote, "Hi Mom."

They then decided to add to the message to honor all the other mothers and staff members in the hospital.

Song says the pair intended the message to read "God Bless U All." They ran out of room before they could spell out that last word.

Still, message received.

Follow Mike Krumboltz on Twitter (@mikekrumboltz).

Related: Snow messages keeping spirits up at Minnesota hospital.