If I had another chance to talk to you even just a few more minutes I wouldn’t waste a single breath I would ask you how you are what...

No matter how much time you have had to prepare, no matter how long you have known this moment might be coming, when that last breath is...

Life is a gift, a one-time-only, no-do-overs, miraculous blessing. And yet, it is so easy to forget that. We get caught in the grind, the...

Presence doesn’t make a grand entrance. It doesn’t need the spotlight. It doesn’t always come with answers or certainty. But presence...

In 1987, my mom was told she had a year to live. She had lung cancer that had spread to her brain. I was twenty-three years old, living...

This poem is born from reflection on all the love I’ve seen and the difficult goodbyes we sometimes must face. Our memories often feel...

I’ve never seen hope as a problem. In fact, I welcome it, because hope is often the only thing that helps someone get through the...

One of the most important things we can do for someone who is declining, especially nearing the end of life, is to align our care with...

Someone asked me if I still feel anything when someone dies, or if I have become numb to death after all the years I’ve spent in...

I wish you happiness. Not the kind that shouts, but the quiet kind that wraps around you on ordinary days. The kind that lives in...

When someone dies, the world goes still A quiet space no voice can fill I miss you more than words can show In every place I used to go...

Hope is a candle in the wind’s deep sigh, A flicker that dances yet dares not die. It clings to the dark by a silver thread, A whisper of...

When I hand someone the Medical Aid in Dying medications, I realize the gravity of my role and the outcome. I never take this lightly and...

At a recent palliative care conference, I learned that many individuals are unclear about the differences between palliative care and...

For the past few days, I have been in Stockton at the California Health Care Facility as a facilitator for the Humane Prison Hospice...

I am a mother I had a mother My sisters are all mothers Many of my friends are mothers And their kids are mothers Some of us were raised...

Those moments at the bedside just before someone dies The last things you hear are the silence and the cries There is ache that people...

Does grief always need to be wrapped tightly with heartbreak, sadness, and pain?   My answer is no. Sometimes we can make peace with the...

One of the lessons I have learned in hospice is that not everyone wants their hand held. Yet so often, our instinct is to reach for the...

When we experience trauma, physical or emotional, our ability to smile can often diminish, regardless of whether it was something that...