Robert had used an elevator in a painting from 1985, Exit, to suggests the up and downs of a relationship between a man and a woman. He found the metaphor of ascending and descending worked just as well for patients who experience frequent changes of mood, worry and hopefulness, about their health. The crowded hospital elevator may be a comment on the great demand for a limited number of services. It makes a collection of strangers, with their mixture of ages and sizes, appear to belong to one giant family. The late Terry Fox, a Canadian hero, appears as both an inspirational figure and possibly as a supernatural guide on an elevator ride to the afterlife. Robert made a series of drawings of Terry Fox running through Halifax in 1982 after he was first diagnosed with cancer.