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...

When my mom died, I took her blue tape measure that she always wore around her neck when she was sewing. When my dad died, I took a small...

A friend of mine died on March 19th, I feel like this is going to be my new normal, and something I am going to have to get used to...

I spent most of my life being afraid to ask for help. I honestly thought that if I did, it meant I was a failure somehow, or inadequate and weak. I was a single mother at an early age and always worked two jobs, constantly feeling one paycheck away from losing my house, my car, and the trust my kids had in me. On my darkest days, whether it was financial setbacks or my poor health that broke me down, I did not know how to ask for help... I was too afraid of being judged or le

This is a question that many people who are navigating an illness hear. It does come from a caring place, and it is not meant to hurt or...

I was with three siblings as they prepared to say goodbye to their mom. One accused her sister of not honoring their mother properly by...

When confronted with grief, people often say “it gets better with time.” Although this statement comes from a place of kindness and...

A common piece of advice I give is: Listen without trying to fix, judge, or share how you would handle the situation... listen to affirm...

One of the things I stress most to the people at the bedside of someone who is dying, is to be mindful of how aware their person is, even...

I was walking down the aisle of a grocery store when I heard a little girl say to her mother, “you know mom, if I don’t eat for three...

We never think about the last words we might have said to someone until they become the last words we said to them The last words,...

When I was about 8 years old, a young man on his motorcycle, came around the corner near my house. I was in my bedroom and I can remember very clearly hearing the motorcycle roaring closely and then I heard the crash, and then I heard silence. He had come around the corner and hit the tree so hard he went one way and the bike went another. I ran out of my house and right up to him, I wasn’t afraid and while it didn’t even occur to me then, I must have had some instinct becaus

The boat rests quietly on the tranquil water Drifting ever so gently with each soft wave And though it remains serene... for now It...

My promise to my patients, to the people who love them, to my family, to my friends, and to all of you... I will be there for you. xo...

This is a story about a woman who came to our hospice house and touched all of us. This was many years ago but she will always have a place in my heart. This was a woman who touched every single person she met. She was gentle, she was kind, and she was lovelier than any human you will ever meet. And she was dying. She was with us for several weeks. Her room was decorated in fairy lights that her husband hung for her. There were cards from friends hanging on strings that drap

I had a dream that I was taking a walk and I came upon a huge open field of grass and little purple flowers, and there in the middle were two rocks, which seemed to invite me to sit. And I did. After a few minutes of sitting in this huge open space, I looked up at the sky and out of nowhere, there were suddenly hundreds of kites; so many kites of different shapes and sizes and so many colors. I was blown away by how many there were, and no one was flying them and none of them

When I first started working as a hospice nurse, I witnessed the different ways in which individuals go through and express grief. I learned about anticipatory grief, which typically begins at the moment of diagnosis and lingers until the very end. Over the years, I have seen numerous people grieve, and I used to believe that grief was solely related to death, but I now understand that grief encompasses all forms of loss. You can grieve the loss of a friendship, a relationshi