I Understand

“Helen,” she said, as she wiped away her tears, “I hope you never have to experience this. I hope you never have to feel what it feels like to be making a decision that could be ending someone’s life.” Her mom had just literally passed, the room still felt like full of her presence. My…

The Final Moments

She lays there… here eyes dancing between slightly open and closed… her breaths…much more pronounced now…it’s almost as if her whole body becomes a party to each deep inhale… her chest rises, but, so does her abdomen, but curiously not in harmony… her skin is sallow has taken on a waxy appearance…her cheeks are sunken…her…

Allowed

A few weeks ago, I was seated around the bedside of a mother and grandmother, talking with her children. The patient was dancing between this world and the next, so peacefully and her daughters were just relived that she was finally reaching the end of a years long struggle. It had glorious highs with hopeful…

Knocking On The Door

“Helen, does she know I am here? Can she hear me?” Questions like this abound when a loved one is close to crossing the vast divide. Tasking me, a simple hospice nurse with providing the answer to such a profound question, is something that always shakes me to my core. You see, the truth is,…