Making Peace With Death & Dying

Talking to Doctors About a Terminal Diagnosis

If you receive a terminal diagnosis, you may be shocked or not, but one thing is very clear, you have some important decisions to make. Others can advise you and/or express their concerns, but ultimately it is you, and only you, who must decide…

6 Ways To Talk About Death And Dying

In response to my 8/9/10 post entitled "The Importance of End of Life Preparation," Valencie Bathe wrote: How I want to die needs to be dinner table conversation... not whispered and forgotten. There is no shame in dying and planning to die…
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The Power of Bearing Witness

There are times in life when the highest honor, the greatest love is paid to another by simply bearing witness to his or her experience. Bearing witness is largely nonverbal. It is the choice to give the gift of a pure expression of love and…

Honoring the Memory of a Deceased Loved One

This post was inspired by an email I received from a reader regarding last week's blog, "The Power of Bearing Witness." He wanted to know how to bear witness to a friend who had died. When bearing witness to the living, it is essential to take…

How to Handle Family Dynamics Around a Dying Loved One

While there are times when the motivations of family members for asserting their particular point of view regarding the "well being" of a critically ill loved one are self-serving at best, more often the motivation is love. Yet, terrible things…

Facing the Holidays When You’ve Lost a Loved One

If you have recently lost a loved one with whom you would otherwise be sharing this holiday season, you might be finding yourself wanting to burrow under your covers with a box of tissues until the holidays have passed. If this sounds like you,…

More About Carrying Your Grief Through the Holidays

Last week's article, "Facing The Holidays When You Have Lost a Loved One" seems to have struck a nerve. So, I'd like to go more deeply into this topic this week. While grief is an exquisitely private matter, in order to move on, most of us need…

Why End-Of-Life Planning Is Such A Good Idea

The fact that most people do not even know what end-of-life planning involves is both sad and the source of an enormous amount of stress and distress for many families. We have all heard horror stories about families fighting over a loved one's…

Why Hospitals Are the Worst Place to Be When You Are Sick (Part 2)

I am deeply grateful for the outpouring of compassion as well as the wealth of information I received from readers in response to my recent post, "Why Hospitals Are the Worst Place to Be When You Are Sick." The spread of infections in hospitals…

Why Hospitals Are The Worst Place To Be When You Are Sick (Part 1)

Serving as primary caregiver to my mother during the last six months of her life was my first prolonged and intimate encounter with the healthcare system. I was shocked and deeply disturbed to discover the many ways that our healthcare system…

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