Posts Tagged ‘hospice’
Our Purpose Is Not A 5-Year Plan
Our purpose is not a 5-year plan. The Universe only guides us one step at a time. I quit my part-time job at the retirement community eighteen months after I’d started there. It no longer brought me joy. Worse, it didn’t help me serve the seniors in the way I wanted to. But the community…
Read MoreDoes Grief have a Purpose?
Does grief have a purpose? Does it move us toward a better version of ourselves? Every sad ending contains the seeds of a new happy beginning. I know this for sure and have lived through it myself. In a recent phone call, this truth was revealed to me one more time. One of my jobs…
Read MoreThe Cycle of Birth and Death
Eckhart Tolle is one of my favorite modern-day mystics. In his book A New Earth Tolle talks about the duality of life. There’s night and day, up and down, happy and sad, tall and short, the cycle of birth and death. Duality is the nature of the physical world we live in. It is a world…
Read MoreThe End Stages of Life
In this conversation Judith Redwing Keyssar explains the terms “hospice” and “palliative” care, which are the end stages of life. She also shares about self-care for caregivers and cultural differences in death and dying. 6. People oftentimes think of hospice as “giving up on a loved one.” How would you respond? NO, NO, NO. Hospice is…
Read MoreComforting Someone Who is Dying
Judith Redwing Keyssar is so much more than her impressive credentials. She is someone who is comfortable with death and dying, and is great at comforting someone who is dying. As Director of the Palliative and End-of-Life Care at Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the San Francisco Bay Area, she assists people through this…
Read MoreWhy do we Fear Death?
Why do we fear death? Maybe it’s because it is the Great Unknown. I’ve found that it’s only by inching toward it that we get a little comfortable with the idea that it is everyone’s ultimate destination. The call came at 10:15 on a Sunday morning. It was Lana, the hospice nurse, calling to let…
Read MoreHow to Listen to a Grieving Person
How to listen to a grieving person is a valuable life skill that can be learned. “We’ve said our goodbyes to each other,” Janet choked the words out. I turned to look at her 59-year-old husband Ted who was deeply sedated, but more at peace than he’d been a couple of days ago. Ted was in our hospice…
Read MoreWaiting for A Loved One to Die
Waiting for a loved one to die is like walking on hot coals. When you know a loved one’s death is approaching, you experience anticipatory grief. In other words, death hasn’t occurred yet, but it is coming. Anticipatory grief can be easy or hard, depending on the kind of person you are. Some people like…
Read MoreWhat are the needs of the dying?
What are the needs of the dying? Over the weeks and months following the grim diagnosis of terminal illness or a debilitating injury, your loved one experiences many losses. Once a healthy, functional, productive individual they begin to suffer a severe loss of identity. The valued role they played is soon a thing of the past. How…
Read More