This paper focuses on several images and metaphors from an artist residency at the Evelina Children's Hospital and subsequent production at the Unicorn Theatre, "For the Best." The intention is to consider how reflecting on an arts-based process with children on dialysis, and their school-mates can provide new ways of viewing performance outcomes. The narrative about a family's struggle to manage with a young boy's long-term chronic illness under the shadow of death is both strange and familiar. The paper, authored by the project's producer and a close collaborator on the project provides insight into Mark Storor's delicate processes as a means of understanding the ways participation, partnerships and learning through the project may be seen as examples of the "uncanny."