For the past eight days I have been quarantined at home due to having multiple symptoms that fall in line with the virus. It has been a very difficult eight ...

Each visit I had with Henry, except for only once because it was raining, was outside on the porch swing that hung from an old oak tree in the backyard of th...

I visited with a patient the other day while at the same time our world was in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis. Before heading in I started to put my fac...

I consider it a privilege when we are asked to care for someone at the end of their life; to have them trust us to come into their home, offering whatever ad...

Every morning for the past eight weeks, I have sent a text message to a woman whose husband passed away. It started as one red heart, which is something I ha...

I have been here before. The room looks different, and the faces have changed but the sounds of tears that echo in my head prepare me for what I am about to ...

This job is tough. Today was one of those days when I completely understand what people mean when they say, “I don’t know how you can do this job”. My answer...

I recently shared a story on my hospice FB page that really opened something up inside me. One of the things I have become very drawn to are the visions that...

Someone recently asked me why we call it a “good death”. She is the daughter of a man who was nearing the end of his life and someone had told her she hoped ...

I can’t even count how many days I have forgotten to eat, or to use a restroom or check the mirror to make sure I am still somewhat intact. Despite the many ...

I have always been attracted to hummingbirds and dragonflies. Someone once told me that if you see a hummingbird soon after someone has died, it means they h...

A few days ago I was at a facility seeing a patient. I got off the elevator heading toward the memory care unit and noticed a familiar face across the room. ...

The only real certainty about death is that we are all going to die. We are certain of that. But how and when we die is a question no one can truly answer. W...

In one week I could sit with ten different people who are about to or will have lost someone they love. I am witness to the dying process on a daily basis an...

By the time someone comes to us, they have lived their entire lives; we come in at the very end and only get a snapshot. We hear a lifetime of stories conden...

I spend a lot of time talking about the beautiful side of death. Working in hospice has allowed me an opportunity to see death in a way that many people don’...

When I applied to nursing school, it was with my full intention to become a hospice nurse; I never entertained anything else. I knew with every ounce of my b...

One of the things I continue to learn about life through death is that it is not about me. Despite what I may know, sometimes I need to be reminded that this...

I have said this before… but people have a tendency not to ask me how my day was because they are afraid that I am going to tell them. In one of my previous ...

I went to dinner recently and I had to walk two blocks to get to the restaurant. It was really cold and pouring down rain and I forgot to bring a jacket so I...