Something to Think About

When I was 17, I was told to sit with a dying patient — alone. I didn’t know then how profoundly that moment would shape my life’s work...

We used to have grandma’s body “laid out” in the parlor and family and friends came to our home with support and food. Grandma died in the home and we...

Funerals are for the living. They are to bring comfort. Recognizing the life lived by the person that died is comfort to the living...

A hospice referral is a win-win. You win if they say it is too soon and youare not appropriate for hospice care, or you win by coming onto the hospiceprogram...

Part of the specialness of doing your own service/celebration of his life is the planning. The gathering of those who loved him gathered together deciding how to celebrate his love and life...

A group of nurses who volunteer to perform an honor presentation at funerals or memorial services for licensed practical and registered nurses. It reminds me of a veteran's honor guard and...

 Know that all of these signs of approaching death, whether indicating months or weeks, are just guideposts. Some people will show all of them...

Sudden death by accident, suicide and certainly by violence intensifies those normal grief responses. Everything we feel with normal grief is as if we are being held under a magnifying...

Our job as an end of life specialist is to address the elephant in the room, to be direct and honest in the gentlest way possible. We are not doing...

Hospice Bereavement support, as well as any bereavement support program (church, Community Support, Senior Activity Program) is important during the best of times. Now it is vital.  Here are my recommendations;...

Isolation from others is teaching me this about my self ——- I do a lot for others, for their thoughts of me, why else do I wear makeup? Get dressed?...

We do this all the time. We enter tense situations where people are frightened and unsure, with people who have never seen us before. This is what we do: We create...