How Long Does It Take To Forget Someone? | Cognoscenti

"After all these years, I still catch a whiff of my mother’s perfume (Clinique’s Elixir, rich with rose, jasmine and ylang ylang) in an oversized red cotton sweater of hers that I put on when it’s cold and rainy. She is there inside the gold beaded purse that I take to special events. The lining, a ripped silvery-gray silk, contains the subtlest hint of her. I inhale it like a junkie sniffing up the last bits of cocaine dust. And, of course, she is there in my daughters, in ways flattering and not. Her propensity for anxiety permeates us all. Her deep belly laugh is often present in my youngest, her poise in my oldest. I search through boxes of old photos. Is that her, smoking cigarettes and playing Rummikub with “the ladies” at the club? Is that her in bed, two twins lined up to give the appearance of a king, watching tennis on TV on a Sunday afternoon, while my father snores beside her? Or, is the real Nancy Levy Gunst the one singing along with the soundtrack of the great musicals of her youth?"

How Long Does It Take To Forget Someone? | Cognoscenti

I am a Hospice Nurse | Moments of Life

"As a hospice nurse, I can tell you about death coming in threes- 3, 6, 9, or none for a while. I can tell you about the power of music -- and human touch -- at deathbeds. Sometimes I will organize "last wishes" -- major or minor requests of patients who have only days, or hours, to live. Sometimes they want to get back together with a loved one---ask for forgiveness, say goodbye. Sometimes it's to confess something terrible they've done in their lives."

I am a Hospice Nurse | Moments of Life

What Happens at a Jewish Funeral? - Rabbi Moffic

Rabbi Evan Moffic explains the elements of a Jewish funeral and how each helps to provide support and comfort for the mourners.

"Funerals can be painful. But they can also bring us comfort and guidance. A Jewish funeral has one core purpose: to comfort the bereaved....Quite often family members tell me they are going to try hard to “hold it together” during the funeral service. They do not want to draw attention to themselves. But I always tell them we are supposed to feel. We are supposed to experience deep emotions. We all grieve in our own way, but a Jewish funeral service gives a time and place to acknowledge our real feelings. We do not have to be embarrassed to feel and express our pain."


What Happens at a Jewish Funeral? - Rabbi Moffic

Eight Funny Books About Grieving – Electric Literature

 "Grief isn’t funny. Or is it? Big, difficult life events like the death of someone we love make us realize how much we can’t control. But finding the darkly funny moments in the midst of tragedy seems to help us weather tough times. Purchase the novel In my experience, the state of heightened sensitivity that comes with loss can actually make us more aware of what’s funny and absurd about life. And that’s a good thing: by not losing our ability to laugh, we’re retaining a defining element of our humanity."

Eight Funny Books About Grieving – Electric Literature

For someone with dementia, getting hospice coverage isn't easy - The Washington Post

"My mom’s death was perfect, and hospice helped. But her dementia made enrolling her and keeping her in hospice nearly impossible. She died during her second stint in hospice. The year she died, I had reached out to a hospice and palliative-care agency because my mom seemed to be heading downhill fast...The Medicare reimbursement schedule is tied to predicting when a person is within six months of death. People can linger in late-stage dementia for years. There are no scans, blood tests or other scientific ways to predict when a person with dementia will die. Making matters worse, in 2013 Medicare removed “failure to thrive” — one of the hallmarks of late-stage dementia and what some physicians call frailty — and debility as primary diagnoses for hospice entry. But people with dementia decline over years and years, and frailty is part of that decline...People don’t access hospice until the very end of life. Fifty percent have hospice care for fewer than 18 days, and 35 percent have a length of stay of seven days or less. “That’s really frustrating,” said Judi Lund Person, a vice president at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. "

For someone with dementia, getting hospice coverage isn't easy - The Washington Post

When someone is dying, threshold choir provides the comfort of song - The Washington Post

The Threshold singers visit those who are dying to share music.  It brings comfort to the dying and their families and to the singers as well.

"When her parents were dying in the 1980s, [Leslie] Kostrich says, no one acknowledged they were close to death, which didn’t allow her and her family to come to terms with the losses themselves. The Threshold Choir has both helped her in a small way alleviate her own loss and help others avoid that kind of pain, she says....One of the singers, Lily Chang, 28, notes that the choir is helping her confront her own fears of loss.


Chang says she’s very close to her grandmother and, given her age, worries about her. “I remember telling my mom, ‘I don’t know what I would do’ ” if she died. “Thinking about it, engaging with it in different ways makes me feel better.”



When someone is dying, threshold choir provides the comfort of song - The Washington Post

When Bad Things Happen: Picture Books | Chicago Public Library | BiblioCommons

Death, loss, violence. 50 books to help kids cope, learn empathy and build resilience.

When Bad Things Happen: Picture Books | Chicago Public Library | BiblioCommons

Beginning to talk about the end - The Boston Globe

“I’m not going to die tonight, or next Tuesday, or anytime soon,” says one presenter, “but I wanted a chance to think about and express my wishes. And then I can go on living my life.”   

Each of the four women started by filling out a workbook called “Your Way,” which posed a series of detailed questions. What mattered most to them in their lives today — which activities, which values, which beliefs? If they were someday to become incapacitated (unable to recognize or communicate with people), would they want medical care to prolong life or just to provide comfort? Would they want artificial nutrition and hydration, or not? How would they feel about pain management? How important would it be to remain clear-headed? How important to die without lingering? To die at home?"

Beginning to talk about the end - The Boston Globe

Disrupting Death - Could This Be the Next Industry Ripe For Change? - Booming Encore

"So with this potential growth opportunity and in turn the money that also comes with it, could the business of death be the next business opportunity for disruption? It has already started for funeral delivery. As much as baby boomers insisted on changing things while they were living – they are also doing the same in how they are leaving.  Custom caskets, green funerals, funeral webcasts and writing their own obituaries are just some of the changes currently underway."

Disrupting Death - Could This Be the Next Industry Ripe For Change? - Booming Encore

Daryn Kagan's Mother's Day card to her daughter's first mother - CBS News

Because of my daughter's first mother, her loss, the loss of her young life, ends up being my gain. When my husband tells our daughter, "You get that trait from Mom," she lights up with pride. We all know who he's talking about. And it's not me. I'm fine with this. My motherhood bucket already overflows with so much more than I thought I'd get to experience. I was the one who got to tuck her in at night. To talk about boys. To shop for her dress for the school dance. That was my lap she sat in the first time I let her steer a car down our quiet street...I told my daughter, "Your mom will forever be one of my best friends simply because she made you."

Daryn Kagan's Mother's Day card to her daughter's first mother - CBS News

In a secular age, what does it mean to die a good death? | Aeon Essays

Mary Talbot writes: "The modern hospice and palliative care movements emerged in compassionate reaction to the pain, loneliness and grief in which so many medicalised deaths end. Set in motion by Dame Cicely Saunders, an Anglican nurse and physician who founded the first modern hospice in 1967 in London, and the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whose work with the terminally ill inspired her ‘five stages of grief’ paradigm, these models focus on the psycho-social needs of the dying person and the alleviation of physical symptoms. A good death, from the view of a hospice, includes ‘an open awareness of dying, good or open communication, a gradual acceptance of death, and a settling of both practical and interpersonal business’, writes Beverley McNamara, an Australian sociologist who studies the concept of good death in hospitals and nursing homes. ‘In order for the social and psychological aspects of death awareness and acceptance to take place,’ she adds, ‘the dying person’s suffering should be reduced and they must be relieved of pain.’ Spiritual concerns, too, are taken into account as part of the psychological package, but are not necessarily given more weight than other dimensions of care. This version of how to die – a sort of hospice ars moriendi – has become the conventional wisdom about what comprises good death among many of the people who study modern dying, or work in the trenches of end-of-life care. I think back to my volunteer training group and the salient themes that recurred in our disparate fantasies. We wanted a minimum of pain and discomfort, a favourite place (usually home), privacy and a congenial ambience (skydiving notwithstanding), our worldly affairs in order, the chance to say goodbye and sew up loose emotional ends with loved ones. A peaceful and, ideally, lucid mind."

In a secular age, what does it mean to die a good death? | Aeon Essays

End Game -- EOL Documentary (Netflix)

A 104-year old Scientist Prepares for Assisted Death

Champagne bubbles danced in fancy glasses and birthday candles burned atop a cheesecake marking 104 years of a long and accomplished life...But Goodall was not wholeheartedly celebrating the milestone last month in Perth, Australia. The botanist and ecologist, who is thought to be the country’s oldest scientist, said that he has lived too long.

And now, he said, he is ready to die....
“My feeling is that an old person like myself should have full citizenship rights, including the right of assisted suicide,” the 104-year-old man added.

Goodall set out on the trip Wednesday, traveling more than 8,000 miles to northwestern Switzerland, where he plans to end his own life next week.

Switzerland, like most other countries, has not passed legislation legalizing assisted suicide; but under some circumstances its laws do not forbid it.

“I should be glad when I get on the plane — so far, so good,” he said at the airport, wearing a shirt that read: “Ageing Disgracefully.”