Many years ago, I had a young colleague named Danielle. We worked on isolating virus cultures in a laboratory, side-by-side under sterile hoods; and often our conversation meandered to stories of our respective families. Danielle had recently become engaged and was enjoying the preliminaries to her wedding, which was still some months away. Danielle had one sister, and their elderly parents were happily married, healthy and enjoying their respective retirements in the small rural town where she was born. Mostly,…..
Saturday was our wedding anniversary. One year since we were married. One year since that wonderful day, a day that was almost perfect in every way. After twelve years, living as husband and wife, we wanted to make it official. We chose to experience the joys of saying “I do,” of toasting each other and consecrating ourselves to each other in front of witnesses. With only 48 hours of pre-planning, our family made this special ceremony possible; and afterwards they…..
A variety of experiences of death informed and influenced my life. They are reference points for my acceptance of death and expectation of the unexpected. As you read my short vignettes, perhaps you can reflect on your own reference points, how they have influenced your life, and your acceptance of its end. *** One day Lizzie, our female cocker spaniel, was alive; the next she was dead. How did I know? I could hear Dizzy, our male spaniel, as he…..
In my last year of high school, I had a pair of older friends who married fairly young. When they would go out together, they sometimes asked me to come along to be a companion to a visiting out-of-town friend whose name was Brent. Our double dates, if you want to call them that, were always platonic because Brent was destined to become my friends’ brother-in-law. He was engaged to the younger sister of the female, and his fiancée lived…..
The following is an excerpt from our book. When Grandma died at the age of seventy-seven, I was thirteen. Grandma had breast cancer, discovered after it metastasized into her back, and the pain there was unbearable. Her stoicism kept her from complaining for a long time. In the late 1960s there was very little that could be done to slow the progression of such a significant spread of the disease. Perhaps now would be no different. I do not recall…..
In Journey’s End: Death, Dying, and the End of Life, it is our privilege to compile a great variety of content and resources. We have several goals for their use: To serve as educational tools in the training of professionals, students and volunteers To help and support families and friends as they prepare for and live through times of dying, death and bereavement To add to the cultural conversation and comfort level with the topic of death and dying Chapter…..
When someone whom we love dies, quite naturally we grieve. We have lost the connection to our loved one. So it seems. We have lost the place in our lives where we felt safe in the knowledge that our beloved was physically accessible, tangibly present. We feel lost. We miss the laughter in times of shared joy; we miss the tears in times of sorrow and times when our hearts connected in compassion. We miss the hugs, shared in every…..