There are moments in life that don’t look important while they are happening. They only become heavy later. Almost thirty years ago, my dad came to my house for Thanksgiving. We did not have an easy or healthy relationship, so when he asked to come, I was surprised. He lived about an hour away, so I picked him up and brought him home to be with me, my kids, and my friends. He stayed a few days. It was… unexpectedly nice. At dinner, when we went around the table saying what we

One of my favorite lines from a Green Day song is, “I hope you had the time of your life” I heard it again recently, but it landed differently than it used to. Not as nostalgia. Not as a goodbye. But as a question, If this was all there ever was, and all that will ever be... Did we do it right? Did we live it well? Did we let ourselves have the best time we could? I used to think my legacy needed to sound impressive. That it had to prove I mattered. And maybe it still does, a

I am often asked what called me to this work, what brought me here. The truth is, I don’t really have a clean answer. This was never a goal. Never a plan. I didn’t set out to work in end-of-life care. I landed here while caring for a friend who was dying, at a time when I felt lost in ways I didn’t yet have language for. It was unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and far outside anything I imagined for myself. And maybe that was the best part, it challenged me in a way I felt compelle

When I look at this vase, I notice the petals on the table first. They are impossible to ignore. They feel like evidence, of time passing, of change, of what’s already behind us. As we age, this is often where our eyes go. To what we no longer have. To the energy that’s different now. To the version of ourselves we remember fondly, and sometimes mourn a little. The fallen petals can start to feel like a loss of beauty, a loss of possibility. Like proof that we are somehow les

Optimism often arrives at the bedside holding hands with hope. They are spoken together, breathed out softly, sometimes clung to. And almost always, they are misunderstood. There is a quiet judgment that can surface in these rooms. “ They are in denial. They don’t want to accept reality. They are pretending this isn’t happening.”  I hear it said about families who continue to hope, who allow optimism to live beside the truth that their loved one is dying. I don’t see denial.

Yesterday is a place we return to when today feels unbearable. It is where things still make sense. Where voices still sound familiar. Where routines exist and love feels intact. Yesterday holds what once was, and because of that, it often becomes a refuge when the present feels too sharp, too empty, too demanding. In grief, yesterday has weight. It carries phone calls that used to come easily. Ordinary moments that didn’t announce their importance while they were happening.

Memories are the places we return to long after someone is no longer here. They outlive goodbye. They outlast choice, distance, and death. They are the only thing that can carry a voice across time, the only way a laugh can still find us when the room is quiet. A memory takes you back without asking permission. It brings back the weight of a hand you once held, the exact sound of their voice, the way they looked at you when no one else was watching. And somehow, even when eve

One of the places I meet the most resistance at the end of life is around the use of medications to relieve symptoms such as pain, agitation, or delirium. The medications I am referring to, are often morphine, lorazepam, or haloperidol, which are commonly included in the comfort or relief kit provided when someone begins hospice care. What families struggle with most is the fear that these medications may cause their person to sleep more, or become deeply sedated, and in doin

It begins long before the last breath Long before the room goes still It starts in that first moment when a diagnosis enters the air and something inside you quietly tightens. From there, the waiting starts You hold your breath without meaning to through each update each slow change each “let’s see what tomorrow brings” You learn the landscape of decline by instinct listening for shifts no one else hears showing up again and again because love holds you in place. Caring for s

One of the questions I am asked more than almost any other is this: “Why do we stop food and water at the end of life?” It is a question filled with tenderness, and often, with fear. Families struggle. Clinicians and caregivers struggle. Anyone who has ever cared for someone who is dying knows how deep the instinct is to nurture, to comfort, to give. We equate food and water with love, with survival, with doing right by someone we care about. And so, when we are asked to stop

We don’t talk about it often, but the moment someone begins to decline, whether it’s subtle or sudden, caregiving quietly becomes a form of grieving. It doesn’t matter if you are caring for them for days, weeks, months, or years. From the first sign of change, anticipatory grief settles in. You begin preparing for a moment you can never truly be prepared for. You keep showing up, doing what needs to be done, holding the weight of each day because you have to. It’s an act of d

We use the word so casually, but for so many of us, it carries the weight of an entire lifetime. Being a professional isn’t about a title someone gives or takes away. It’s about the moment you decided to learn something that would challenge you, stretch you, and change you. It’s the decision to enter a field, any field, where people rely on you, where knowledge matters, where skill matters, where heart matters. A professional is someone who steps into that responsibility with

There are people in our lives who become lighthouses, steady, unmovable, shining for us even when we are convinced we should be able to walk the shoreline alone. They show up despite whatever storms they are weathering themselves. They see us clearly, past all the ways we try to appear strong, and they accept us without a second thought. For many of us, these are the people we reach for only when we have run out of ways to pretend we don’t need anyone. Something in us knows t

Acceptance means many things to many people. As I grow older, I find myself understanding it in deeper and more layered ways than I ever have before. Acceptance is about making peace, with an ending, a change, a loss, or a reality we never asked for. It can mean coming to terms with the end of a relationship, a shift in our home or work, or even life-altering news that changes everything. We are constantly invited, sometimes unwillingly, to find acceptance in what is handed t

When I was going through treatment many years ago, my mouth was so dry my tongue felt like sandpaper. Food became an uninvited guest, unpleasant and unwelcome, and nausea seemed to linger like a dark shadow. This was before I became a nurse, and during that time, I stumbled upon something surprisingly healing: watermelon. Not cantaloupe, not honeydew, just watermelon. Somehow, it brought my tongue back to life. It gave me moisture and hydration, eased my nausea, and for a mo

Let’s talk about the C-word. No, not that one, I am talking about  constipation . (If you are already blushing, don’t worry, you are not alone.) As a nurse, I have asked more people about their bowel movements than I can possibly count. It’s part of the job. We want to know the  when, what, how , and sometimes even the  why . “When was your last bowel movement?” might just be one of the most common questions in healthcare, and believe me, we are not just being nosy. Your gut

The Day Everything Changed One day, I woke up feeling completely fine. B y mid-afternoon, everything changed. Out of nowhere, I was hit with uncontrollable nausea, weakness, and pain so intense that my body began to shake. I told myself I could ride it out, something so many of us in healthcare tend to do. We are used to being the caregiver, not the one being cared for. But that instinct to “push through it” nearly cost me my life. Within hours, I was trembling with fever, b

Gratitude means many things to many people. It’s a word we often say as though we all understand it in the same way, yet what resonates deeply with one person may not with another. For me, as someone who has spent nearly fifteen years working in end-of-life care, who has witnessed over two thousand last breaths, gratitude has become something sacred and layered. It has been shaped by sitting beside those who are dying, by holding space for families preparing to say goodbye, a

Some stories stay with you forever. This one will stay with me for the rest of my life. About two months ago, I met Thomas and Cecelia a couple married for 63 years, together for 65. They had lived a beautiful, full life, side by side, and, as fate would have it, they were also diagnosed with terminal illnesses within weeks of each other. At first, Thomas cared for Cecelia. She was more symptomatic, and he did everything he could to ease her pain. Then, when her treatments sh

Empathy is more than understanding what someone is going through, it is feeling with  them. It is the ability to see the world through their eyes, to step into their story without judgment, and to hold space for their emotions even when we don’t fully understand them. I have learned that empathy isn’t about offering solutions or comparing experiences. It’s not about saying “I know how you feel,” but about saying, “I am here with you.” When we walk beside someone who is declin