Life is unpredictable and you never really know which way it will take you. As health professionals, we go in with the expectation (and hope) that we will impart some wisdom, say the right words or perhaps do something that makes “everything all right” for our patients when they encounter experiences they had not anticipated. We have stories to share and we hope it can help others make sense of the chaos life can be.

However at times the tables are turned and it’s the patient who ends up helping us.…

Some years ago, through the public relations conduits of VNSNY, I was a guest consultant on MSNBC. The topic was the worldwide reaction to the death of Pope John Paul II. As a bereavement professional and member of the clergy, I was asked why there was such a strong public outpouring of grief over the death of one man. While I don’t recall my exact comments from that day, I’m sure my response focused on both his larger-than-life persona as a Pope, as well as the person himself. He had struggled…

The end of 2010 is almost upon us and I, for one, could not be happier. The conclusion of the year always brings with it its share of “In Memoriam” presentations, and the web is the ideal medium to present a slideshow of those who have passed. The Oscars have their version, too, usually accompanied by mournful music and a well-intentioned introduction.

In the past, VNSNY Hospice has held its own memorial service once a year. Families were invited to submit a photo for a slideshow and donate a piece of…

Tonight I had dinner with my old friend, Dave. Dave and I met the first week of my freshman year at UCLA. We performed improvisational comedy together every week for five years at school. Our paths have crossed off and on over these, um, 20 plus-years, but we try to have dinner once a year. This year we’re on a roll – we’ve had two.

Dave is a drama therapist and life coach, which allows him to offer up some pretty astute insights, especially when I’m not expecting them.  As I…

When it comes to writing I have been a procrastinator my whole life. From the Western Civilizations paper in high school to the take home final for an arts in education class a few years ago, I can’t churn the work out. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing, in fact I’m really quite fond of it, but when I set out on assignment, I am always waiting for that elusive divine spark of inspiration… that flash of brilliance that will make the essay poignant, memorable, and worth the reader’s…

This is Caramel. She’s a 16 year old female Calico cat that has been in my life since 1995. I brought her home from the Animal Protective League in Cleveland while I was in my second to last year of nursing school. She was 7 months old and feisty.

Caramel has lived with me in a total of five different apartments since I graduated college. She consoled me through the end of a relationship, encouraged me with her approving meows into a new one, and she moved to New York with…

Since April is National Poetry Month, I have been trying to determine all month long which poems relating to death and dying would be ripe for blogging. Fortunately, the poems worthy of discussion presented themselves to me when I went to an exhibition recently at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea. They appeared in the concluding gallery of the exhibition called Remember That You Will Die: Death Across Cultures, which for one second seemed like the right title for this blog, but then I thought better of it.

The exhibition itself…

(Photo by Michael Barkowski)

Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. The question of self-pity.

Those are the opening sentences in Joan Didion’s book, “The Year Of Magical Thinking“, winner of a National Book Award. It tells the story of the author’s journey with grief and loss after the sudden death of her husband in 2003.

Ms. Didion’s story and her process of grief very closely resembles my mom’s experience. My mom lost her husband, my father, in a similar manner…

I spent much of Presidents’ Day night on the web searching for blog ideas. Not to worry, I was not neglecting other responsibilities. My husband was at his Pilates class and I was taping 24.

My original thought was to write about Patrick Kennedy choosing not to run for re-election. He is still mourning his father (who was a hospice patient), and he himself has battled depression, bipolar disorder, and substance abuse. I attended a great VNSNY workshop on “Addiction and Recovery in Grief” and was fascinated to learn that people…

I had a dear patient once, my first, who wanted to tell me what it felt like to die. She had dozens of friends, but no siblings, no husband, and no children. She had been married—once in her 50s for about a year—but she divorced her husband because “he couldn’t stand being married to a smart woman.”  She was surrounded by people who loved her, but there was no one in her life with whom she could reveal such intimate thoughts.

Every day was a struggle. She would wake up, acknowledge…