Something to Think About
a blog on end of life
The space between birth and death is the most important part of life YET we somehow go through the living part unaware. In a hurry, with a great deal of tension, and very little...
Know that all of these signs of approaching death, whether indicating months or weeks, are just guideposts. Some people will show all of them...
When someone we know or are close to dies we expect to grieve. We recognize our sadness but often we don’t recognize our impulsiveness to clean the house, or our...
I am now writing this. Here is what I am thinking: The way I have lived my life up to now will probably be changed forever. How long physical distancing...
There are many of the same circumstances with today’s coronavirus as we faced with HIV/AIDS in the early years— lack of medical knowledge, lack of guidance, and fear. I think...
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...
In our culture the holidays, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas, emphasize family and friend togetherness. The absence of a friend or family member becomes more evident. Our sense of loss...
Hospice has worked with nursing facilities for many years now. Our relationship and interactions with patients and their families is now better understood and better defined. That said, some nursing facilities...
I suggest writing a letter to the person that died and saying from your heart what you need to say that you didn't say before. I recommend that you write...
We can be as much at a loss when our pet is dying as we are when a person is dying but there doesn’t seem to be the support and...
What is the aim of a life review? As a caregiver my aim is not to direct a life review but to be a presence, a listener, and a friend....
Hospice can not take the experience and sadness of a loved one dying away. Our goal is to help the family create a sacred experience, to help their loved one...
The hours before actual death is very scary, a "I don't know what to do" time, for anyone present. Someone who knows the normal natural way a person dies can...
Be the best hospice you can possibly be, provide the highest quality of care with the most compassionate, caring staff your area has to offer. Build a reputation within the...
When living with a life threatening illness we are eating for two---our physical body and our disease. In most cases the disease eats before we do. If we don’t eat,...
...Fortunately, I suppose, my mother is now bed-bound and we were able toget Hospice to help out, so she now fits the bill for a 'model patient'... but itstill seems...
As we get older, life presents us with different challenges. We adapt to them in the same way we have lived our life and dealt with all the challenges in...
From the moment of a diagnosis of a life threatening illness we begin grieving. We grieve not just the eventual losses that come with serious illness but the approaching death...
...not telling a person they can’t be fixed is taking away their opportunity to do and say that which is important to them. It is taking away their ability to...
We must talk about end of life issues NOW while we are healthy, and our thoughts are not clouded with fear. Right now when emotions don’t affect our thinking. When we can...
Dear Barbara, Please talk about unexpected youth death. In our minds we understand, that as sad as it is when an older adult dies,they have lived their life and death...
