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Denise Carson, Author of Parting Ways, gives keynote speech on Grief Journeys at the Annual Hospice Care of the West Memorial Service.

I was invited to speak at the Hospice Care of the West Annual Memorial Service. This is one of my favorite communal rituals that the hospice organizes for their families who have lost a loved one that year. All the families come together to share life stories and share in their grief.  I don’t often speak directly about my grief journey. Admittedly it was a cathartic experience. I was profoundly moved by the other folks who stood during the open mic and shared how much my story meant to connecting to their own grief journey. As I listened to their grief journeys and life stories of loved ones lost, I realized how universal grief really is and that awe-inspiring moment gave me the courage to share this deeply personal story here on our blog. See below…

I’m honored to be with you here today. I remember very clearly my first memorial service at Hospice Care of the West in 2006. I wrote Mom on a rock in ritual of remembrance of her. And, I distinctly recall a feeling a palpable sense of community in my grief that I had never experienced before in a public setting.  As I listened to the life stories and reminiscences of others, I felt a sense of familiar and belonging.

At that time, I had been on a journey to write my book Parting Ways that led me across the country from New York City to California on quest to understand how grief inspires us to celebrate life even in our darkest hours of despair and loss. In retrospect, I set out as journalist but also as a daughter in search of others like me, so I would not have to do my grief journey alone.

I have learned to live with grief, as it is not something that you don’t get over after the funeral, or when you’ve cleaned out the closet or a year or even two years after the death.

The first time I learned about grief, in a college class, the sociology of death and dying, some 10 years after my father died of cancer. It was an unveiling of an invisible handicap for me. For a decade, I had suffered alone bottling this indescribable pain. I felt a physical tearing apart from my father. We did not have hospice because no one not even his own doctors accepted that he would die. Veiled in denial, he battled for two years in excruciating pain until his body finally succumbed to the cancer at 37 years old.

I’ve heard grief being described as a thicket that you cannot walk around but must instead walk down the middle feeling your way through the darkness and thorns to get to the other side.

I yearned to hear the timber of his voice, feel the strength of his hug, see his funny faces at the dinner table that always made me feel like everything would be ok.  I did not realize it at the time but I was constantly cycling through the stages of grief: Denial, Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. This condition that had plagued me for 10 years had a name: grief. But I had never gotten to the other side of it.

I did not fully appreciate that in order to recover from grief, we must find ways to walk through our emotional, spiritual and physical loss until my mother was diagnosed with cancer 12 years later. It was then when the grief of my father’s death surfaced and inspired how my mother and I celebrated her life, even in our deepest hours of despair. It was then that I began the walk through the thicket.

Hospice Care of the West Annual Memorial Service Lunch.

We have an interesting journey through hospice in that we have some indication as we enter the service that time is short. And, that triggers grief that can be paralyzing or inspiring, depending on which lens you’re looking through. The day my mother’s doctor shared that the chemotherapy was no longer working and that hospice was an option started our fast-forwarded journey to her last breath.

Since I had been a journalist at the LA Times, I had begun recording interviews with my mother about her life in a way that I interviewed my sources for a news story. Yet, after the hospice conversation, those interviews took on a new kind of significance. I felt my mother telling her stories with such vibrancy and detail that transported me from her bedside back in time to England where she grew up, her coming to America at 18 years old, traveling across the country in summer 1969 and meeting my father. Yet, when I asked about her career as a banker, she changed the subject.

Until one afternoon, when I asked her if she wanted to do an interview.

She smiled. “I think I want you to clean the clothes out of my closet.”

Usually this ritual occurs after the funeral and marks the acceptance that the deceased will not be returning. Admittedly, it would have been easier to say, “No, I’ll just do it later.” But if I had waited, I might have lost the stories locked in her closet.

I pulled out her business suits and laid them on the bed. She ran her fingers over the skirts and jackets, reawakening the power she felt wearing them in a Los Angeles skyscraper where she was one of the first women in bank management during the 1970s.

“Back then, women had to wear skirts,” she recalled, “Can you imagine the discrimination?” Although she kept her hair short and professional, she declared her femininity in bold royal blue, emerald, red and violet, standing out among the men in black suits.

As she reveled in the past, I realized how much her three-decade career meant. I decided to keep the suits. I’d never really paid attention to her life outside of being a single mom to my younger brother and me.

I pulled out a disco dress, slipped it on and danced around the room. She followed me with her eyes, saying I had my dad’s rhythm as she recounted how they cleared the dance floor when they discoed. They had been divorced, but you wouldn’t know it. At that moment, she was on that dance floor dancing with him in her mind. Just like she was in her childhood home when we talked about growing up in England. Or when she recalled the musty smell of the tent she stayed in during her summers in the English countryside. She had an uncanny ability to transport us to her past during our interviews.

As I worked on her closet, she smiled. “I’m content. I feel like I’m doing the right thing, having you do this,” she said. “One of the hardest things after a person dies is to go through their personal effects… You are learning everything, so in the aftermath, there really won’t be too much to do.”

She succeeded. I feel lucky not to be left with unanswered questions about her life, as I have so many about my father’s. Not long after, we had a living wake at our home. All of her friends and family came to the bedside in her last week of life to celebrate her. She was like a queen, the deathbed her throne, holding court, laughing, sharing stories and carrying on. I knew in a way that she did that for me, so I would not be alone, and to make the last sunset on her life a grand finale.

Something I have never shared publically, that I’d like to share with you now…as it sustained me in those hours after she died, when I did not want to continue living without her. I should say, we are in a very magical time after someone close to us has died. It’s like the walls between this world and whatever is next thin. For a brief time, you are connected to life beyond that which we can see and touch.

I was having dreams about my mother, and a friend of mine, said to me, why don’t you ask her how she is doing in the dream. That night in a very lucid dream that feels as real as you all do in front of me now. I was sitting at Thanksgiving dinner with my mother and family, and she said, ok, time to clean the dishes. I picked up my dish, and consciously followed her into the kitchen. And I asked her, how are you doing Mom? She turned to me and said, Oh, Denise, it is like a reunion here. And I have peace that truly does surpass all understanding. Your father and I, often walk with him in the garden, she said.

I came out of the dream with the deepest sense of gratitude for the time that I had been given with my mother. And I knew then she was ok, and that at sometime point I would eventually be ok too. Since, I understood grief was a very isolating experience, I set out to meet others like me on my journey rather than doing it alone as I had with my father.

While working on my book, I visited my stepmother, my father’s wife for an interview. We talked about his last days, and for the first time we cried together. Then she said to me, Denise, the only thing you remember is his death story. Tears rolled down her cheeks, she left the room. And then returned from her garage with a huge box full of photo albums and pictures. Together, we began looking through the pictures, of our pool parties, disco parties and my father dancing in his Italian tailored suits, and later I watched their wedding video…for the first time I recalled the memories that I had experienced with my dad that I couldn’t because they were blocked by my grief.

Later, I spoke to a grief oncologist. Yes, it’s what it sounds like a specialist in grief brought on my cancer death. It was then I learned that I had complied grief from their deaths. Again, I had a name for what I was living through. But that grief oncologist and many other grief specialists that I interviewed shared that life review that I did with my mother, the cleaning out her closet together and the unexpected joy we experienced from that time was what I needed to hold on to. And her death story, like his death story, I had to let go over. The death is the darkness, the life that we shared with them is light. In our grief, we must go to the light.

It was my mother’s life review, the light, which led me to the Hospice Care of the West through the life review video program as I researched my book. For two years, I spent time at the bedside witnessing patients’ record their life stories in a very raw last conversation that was later edited together with pictures and music. These recording of these life reviews brought families together at a time when they felt like they were being wrenched apart. Through reminiscences, they were transported back to better times, moments of glory, pivotal experiences that inspired wisdom to be shared and passed on to the next generation.

I believe part of the grief experience is to share our stories, as I’m sure all of you have experienced memories from your subconscious mind dump into your consciousness.  It makes us feel a bit foggy, and hazy.

I think this is a life review of the memories we have lived with the person we have had to part with. And it is memorial services like these that inspire us to sift through these memories and make sense of the life we shared with our person. We feel a sense responsibility and urgency to preserve their life story and wisdom to pass on to everyone we encounter, so our person has not lived vein. That is why this memorial service is so profound to me back then in 2006 and even today. It is not just family and friends, but a community brought together through the last season of life.

The post Through the Thicket of Grief to the Light of Remembering Life appeared first on Our Life Celebrations.

After his mother died, Paul Cebar of Milwaukee, Wisc., began to scan and post photos to Facebook from an album that had belonged to her to honor her memory. Photo by Darren Hauck for The New York Times

A profound insight in the New York Times story A New Ritual, Many Find Solace Online about how we use Facebook and social media to help us mourn and share our grief journey with others, written by Samuel Freedman, New York Times Columnist of On Religion and my former professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. I’m quoted  in the column saying,

“When someone dies, you want everyone to know this life so that he or she did not live in vain,” said Denise Carson, author of “Parting Ways,” a book about innovative end-of-life rituals.

“Our fear of this person fading from our memory triggers a life review of all the moments shared together,” she continued. “Memories of the deceased dump from our subconscious into our conscious mind. It can be overwhelming. Social media gives us a platform to organize our reflections. Now we have a stage online to transmit these life stories. And we have a place that allows us to share and connect with others in our hour of grief.” To read the article go to New York Times

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Sandy Platamone, a nurse at Hospice Care of the West, holds a knowing presence at the bedside with her patients and their families. They are relieved to have her there to listen, understand, take away the pain and help navigate the unknown. Living with dying is a familiar landscape. Like a veteran, she knows every piece of the terrain.

Though, Sandy will tell you, she took a detour on her way to becoming an R.N. Since, as long as she can remember she wanted to be a nurse. Sandy recalls sitting down everyday after kindergarten to watch the soap opera General Hospital. She stared at the nurses and envisioned herself as one of them.

She practiced her nursing skills on hurt animals or sick friends in the neighborhood. If a bird fell out of a tree, she would turn a shoebox into a makeshift nest and nurse the bird back to health. Her nurturing spirit comes from her mother, a typical ‘50s homemaker, yet a fiery, strong, passionate Italian woman. Her love for service to others came from her father, the quintessential servant as a World War II veteran and the neighborhood mailman.

She grew up in an Italian family and home, as the middle and only girl between two brothers in Temple City. Some of her favorite memories growing up play out in the kitchen learning to cook at her mother’s side, which inspired her to study nutrition in college. By the time she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in home economics from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, she grew tired of food and recipes. She was ready to see the world.

Sandy became a flight attendant and joined Air America transporting military personnel on charters into Cairo, all over the Middle East, Panama and Asia. At times, she flew for 24 hours straight. That meant coping with crisis in the air, thousands of feet above the ground.

Around her 28th birthday, she felt the call to ground her life. She realized it was time to settle down, find a husband and become a nurse. She worked in the office at Air America during the week, attended school at night and then flew to Honolulu and back as a flight attendant every weekend.

At Air America, she met a guy named Tony Shima from Iowa and he asked her out that day. On their first date, she remembers walking with him on the beach, her favorite place. Not long after, he became a firefighter with the City of Burbank. And Sandy became a nurse at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance. Life unfolded so perfectly that before she knew it, Tony asked for her hand in marriage, yet Sandy stalled. She loved being independent, but then she gave in realizing that she loved Tony more. They honeymooned in Big Bear. Tony came into the family as a shy quiet country boy but quickly became an honorary Italian. Within a few years, Sandy gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Kelsey.

Life was rise until Sandy’s mother was diagnosed with leukemia, shortly after Kelsey’s third birthday. And then, Tony was diagnosed with colon cancer a few months later.

“It was April 4^th 2000, he was only 39,” Sandy said. “I’ll never forget the day when we were at the hospital where I worked. And one of my friends who was his surgeon said, ‘Sandy, I’m so sorry to tell you this but, the cancer has extensively metastasized to his liver.’”

Thrown into the cancer lifestyle, Sandy and Tony adapted to chemotherapy, the clinical trials and the nausea. It was like a roller coaster. By summer’s end, Sandy’s mother entered an in-patient hospice. Her mother’s pain was not controlled.

Sandy sat on her mother’s deathbed and wept. Her mother summoned every bit of fire left in her soul to say, “You got to be strong, Sandy.”

When she died, Sandy could not grieve. She had to dig deep and keep going for Tony. It was then she made a vow that her husband would be in no pain, like her mother was.

Knowing it was their last Christmas together, Sandy arranged a trip to the mountains to stay in the very same cabin that they honeymooned in. Tony was determined to build his daughter a bike. The task proved difficult because of the altitude. Battling shortness of breath, he powered through and experienced the joy of his daughter receiving her first bike on Christmas morning.

“Kelsey was so excited,” Sandy said. “It was special because it was our last family time together.”

By January, he suffered. At one point, Sandy said to Tony, “You don’t have to do this anymore.” And he said, “I’m going to keep fighting.” He was so worried about taking care of his wife and his daughter. He wanted to buy a house. He didn’t want to let go of this beautiful life they built together. About a month later, he realized she was right.

“We said, everything we had to say to each other. Mostly, I would apologize for not marrying him sooner,” she said with a chuckle.

Hospice came. At the time, as a hospital nurse focused on curative care, she barely knew what hospice was. She dismissed the care, except for the social worker.

“I wouldn’t let anybody do anything,” she said. “I was his nurse.  It was how I coped. Sometimes, I think, God put him in my life because I was going to be the one to help him die.”

She bathed him, administered his medications to ensure he was in no pain, and lovingly cared for his every need until his last breath in their home. It was less than a year, 11 months between Tony’s diagnosis, her mother’s death and his last breath, yet they played in her mind slowly, over and over, reel by reel, like a bad movie after Tony died.

Sandy could no longer live in their home. She moved to San Clemente. She found the ocean view home that became the sanctuary for her grief and then a church and community that brought a new season of life for Sandy and Kelsey.

“I don’t know if my Mom and Tony were looking out for me but I got my ocean view,” she said. Sandy took time off to be a mother to Kelsey as she entered kindergarten then grade school. Around the time Kelsey was in third grade, Sandy mentioned to a friend she was ready to go back to work. Her friend suggested she reach out to gal she knew who ran a homecare company.

“The homecare company turned out to be a hospice,” Sandy said. “You know I feel like I could never teach somebody how to breastfeed until I had Kelsey. After going through hospice with my Mom and Tony, I just knew what to do. So, hospice found me. The pieces of the puzzle of my life finally came together. Looking back, the wisdom that I’ll pass on to my daughter is serve others, people and animals.”

This past summer, Sandy caught glimpses of Tony living on in her daughter at a Dude Ranch in Wyoming.

“Kelsey fell in love with the country, and caring for animals, she is a country girl just like her Dad.”

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In my Parting Ways Column in the Orange County Register, I share the story of a community grieving together. As the holidays draw near, lighting a candle and reflecting on loved ones can be healing. Read below:

At sunset the day after her son’s birthday, Karen Knee, 52, gathers with more than 100 other families from across Orange County to light luminarias, or lanterns, to remember and celebrate lost loved ones.

Overlooking the waves crashing on Laguna Beach, the families sit at picnic tables and color their lanterns, marking them with names: Emily, Aaron, Don, Connor, Mom and Dad. The participants introduce themselves and ask, “Who did you lose?” or “Who is your luminaria for?”

“This is a perfect evening,” Karen says as she welcomes everyone to the ceremony. “I have to say happy birthday to my James. Yesterday, he would have been 29 years old. So, this is a bittersweet event for me. It’s always hard, but I love gathering with everybody and remembering and remembering your loved ones as well.”

On the morning of July 8, 2003, Karen woke to find her bedroom light was still on. Their ritual was, if James was coming home late, she would leave her light on, and he would turn it off as a signal that he was home.

She thought he just forgot, until the police arrived at her office in Costa Mesa. They told her that her 19-year-old son, James Anthony Rodrigues, was in a fatal car accident. “What am I supposed to do?” she repeated. In her deepest grief, she vowed James would not be forgotten.

She began going to a bereaved parents support group at the YMCA in Tustin. There she met a community of people who spoke this new language of loss. Soon after, she started a nonprofit organization called Memory JAR, with a mission to collect memories and create experiences that help families generic cialis no prescription remember loved ones within a community of compassionate people.

JAR are her son’s initials. Karen runs the nonprofit with the help of her parents, her sister and her son, James’ younger brother, Robert. In 2007, she organized the first Memory JAR ceremony to remember James around the anniversary of his death. Karen and a group of parents released butterflies in memory of their children while a choir of girls sang Eric Clapton’s song “Tears in Heaven.”

In 2008, she went to Laguna Beach and wrote in the sand “You’re Invited,” took a picture and sent out an invitation to the first candle-lighting of remembrance in honor of his birthday. All of the families loved this ceremony so much, they asked her to organize another one, and today it’s a tradition for Karen and Memory JAR.

As Karen walks from picnic table to table, families embrace her with gratitude. The aroma of chili, James’ favorite food, fills the air.

The lyrics “Life carries on” from Seal’s song “Prayer for the Dying” resonate as Melodie Ybarra sits beside her 6-year old, Aiden, and four adopted children coloring luminarias in memory of her husband, Don, and three boys – Brandon, 7, Connor, 4, and Jacob, 2 – who died in a fire that engulfed her Placentia home in 2002. Melodie was 36, and in the ashes of her loss, she rebuilt her house, fell in love with a man named Michael Chapman and gave birth to Aiden.

Together, they adopted Jacquelynn, now 17; Eoin, 7; Maize, 9; and Keira, 12.

Aiden inscribes a luminaria for Jacob. And Maize colors one for Connor. Eoin does one for Brandon.

“We still feel our family members are a part of our daily lives,” she says.

At the sound of a chiming bell, they leave the tables and walk down a hill to place the lanterns on the beach. Karen follows the procession and hands out electric tea lights to the families.

Bernard Dobine, 54, and Judy Small, 48, of Laguna Nigel, reflect on their son Aaron’s brilliant smile as they light their candles that ignite a string of colorful luminarias on the beach. Aaron was 29 when he died in a motorcycle accident Sept. 10. The family look at pictures of Aaron and his brother, Matt, when they were children. Still in a fog, Bernard, Judy and Matt struggle to make sense of the reality that Aaron is gone.

Just a few lanterns down the beach, Alex Evans, 36, and his wife, Sara, 36, and their son, Jacob, 12, sit on the beach writing Emily’s name in the sand and building sand castles around their luminarias. Six months ago, they lost their 8-year-old daughter.

“Seeing her name on the lantern, hearing people read her name means to me she did exist and she will not be forgotten,” Sara says. Alex basks in the community of people who don’t make him feel like an alien when he talks about his daughter.

“It’s only been six months,” he says. “But people make me feel like I should be over it by now. Here, I’m free to talk about Emily. And we’re not alone.”

Jill Martin, 62, of Yorba Linda, sets her luminaria down and reflects on dancing with her teenage son, Eric, who died at 16. It’s been 26 years.

As the sun bows into the Pacific, the coastline glows with more than 300 lanterns illuminating the lives of loved ones and the connections between those who live on. At the closing of the ceremony, Melodie and her children surround Karen and sing “Happy Birthday” to James.

“It’s our way of saying thank you,” Melodie says to Karen, echoing the sentiment of the parting families.

After Karen cleans the beach with a crew of volunteers, she sits at the picnic table and smiles with relief.

“I’ve kept my vow. James will not be forgotten.”

Denise Carson wrote the book “Parting Ways: New Rituals and Celebrations of Life’s Passing” and blogs at ourlifecelebrations.com. The book is available at University of California Press or amazon.com.

Contact the writer: denise@denisecarson.com

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On local Channel 6 News, Patty Mouton, family member of a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, shares her story of choices and support received from Hospice Care of the West,

at a challenging period in her mother-in-law’s life. Initially, she was shocke

d when the doctor suggested hospice, but in hindsight she realized hospice care was the right choice for her mother-in-law at that stage of her journey. Patty is also the Vice President of Outreach and Advocacy of the Alzheimer’s Association Orange County Chapter, so this journey struck her on a personal and professional level.

“Hospice was a tremendous benefit,” she says. Patty talked about the interdisciplinary team such as the social worker who helped smooth out the rough family dynamics and the chaplain who guided her family spiritually find peace and connect with their local church. The Hospice Care of the West team even sent a hairdresser who came and cut her hair. “She looked just adorable,” Patty reflected. But more importantly, “she was comfortable,” Patty said. Hospice and the end of life is often a journey into the unknown and even more challenging when a parent has Alzheimer’s disease. Click below to listen to Patty’s interview with the Channel

6 morning news anchor.

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Nancy Johnson, Hairstylist Volunteer for Hospice Care of the West

Nancy Johnson received a call that Katherine, a 93-year-old hospice patient, needed a haircut and style. It would probably be her last. Nancy is a volunteer hairstylist for Hospice Care of the West in Orange County. She is on call to give haircuts and makeovers for any patients wishing to feel and look good.

Katherine requested Nancy come right away. Upon arriving at Katherine’s Laguna Beach home, Les, her son answered the door. Nancy entered to see a frail woman connected to an oxygen tank. Her hair was already washed and ready for a cut. So, they walked into the kitchen, and Katherine gave specific directions on how she wanted her hair cut and styled.

“I want it short in the back, longer on top,” Katherine said.

After Nancy spun her magic, she gave a mirror to Katherine.

“Outstanding,” Katherine said beaming.

Nancy turned to Les.

“When was the last time you had your hair cut?”

“This is not about me it’s about her,” Les said. But he couldn’t remember the last time as he had been so wrapped up with caring for his mother. An hour later, Les sported a new haircut too. He was filled with gratitude that Nancy had taken the time to care for both of them.

Katherine passed away the next day.

“She looked good for Jesus,” Nancy said. “I think in my heart of hearts, she knew. I hope Jesus likes my work.”

When Nancy was just 25 years old, her mother was dying from esophageal cancer.  She gave her mother a last haircut and perm at home just three days before she passed away.

“It was a bittersweet,” Nancy says recalling combing and styling her mother’s hair for the last time. “I knew this was it, but it made her happy and in that moment I was happy too.”

That’s why Nancy and her calling to just make people feel good in the moment while on hospice is in sync with the team at Hospice Care of the West who believe every moment we have a chance to transform, celebrate and honor the lives of our patients.  Nancy has been a hairstylist volunteer for Hospice Care of the West for about six months now.

She was introduced to Hospice Care of the West in 2010 when her husband, Paul Johnson, the longtime NBC4 Today in LA morning traffic reporter, went into hospice. He was diagnosed with a glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer. Paul made the decision not to have any treatment radiation or chemotherapy.

“I don’t want to be sick while I’m sick,” Paul said to Nancy. “I want to live the bucket list while

there’s still time.”

So, they rode a B-29 bomber, saw a live performance of South Pacific and every weekend they celebrated his life with friends coming in from near and far for backyard barbecues.

“He had an amazing quality of life,” Nancy said. “If there is such a thing as a beautiful death, he had one. He died at home in my arms and he was not in pain. Deb Robson, of Hospice Care of the West, was with me, every step of the way. Sometimes she would come at midnight if I needed her. “

So, Nancy wanted to find a way to give back. She married her love for cutting hair with volunteering for the hospice.

She and Paul knew that she would probably be widowed as he was 22 years her senior. She recalled his first heart attack in 2006 that magnified this reality. At the time Nancy had retired for four years from cutting hair to spend time golfing and traveling with Paul. But after the heart attack, she wanted to go back to work. Within months of starting work at a shop in Newport Beach, the owners wanted to sell.

“He bought the shop for me, so I would have something to do after he died,” she said.

Whether at her shop, Shear Attitude in Newport Beach, or in the home of a hospice patient, Nancy wakes up every morning excited about who is going to be in her chair that day.

At just five years old, Nancy felt the first spark of passion to become a hairstylist when cutting her sister’s hair. The scissors meant for paper didn’t cut her hair perfect but the feeling of transforming her sister’s appearance resonated.  She equally recalls her mother’s displeasure with her sister’s new hairdo.

Her mother took the scissors away. But not for long, by 16 years old, Nancy knew cutting hair would be her life profession, though her mother wasn’t pleased.

“She wanted me to be a nurse,” Nancy says recalling her mother’s wish.

By high school, she was the go-to girl for hair and make-up for all of her friends. And she joined cosmetology school after graduation. She’s been behind the chair cutting hair since 1979.

“I don’t regret a day of it because I do what I love,” Nancy says. “I’ve always been a hairdresser. Things you enjoy as a child that you pursue as adult will probably make you very happy and very successful and that’s where I am at.”

Though Nancy didn’t become a nurse, her hospice volunteer service caring for hospice patients must make her mother proud.

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Hospice Care of the West launched a family series of commercials that capture the experiences of recording a life review video for patients and their children. Take a peek…

We interviewed Richard Marting, the son of John Marting, a World War II veteran who epitomized the Greatest Generation. John valued his wife Marjorie of 61 years, being a good father to his two sons and serving his country at war. In the interview with Richard, we discovered the life review video was the greatest gift to his family because John tells his story in his own words. The interview brought three generations of the Marting family together to listen to their patriarch. When Richard watches that video, he feels close to his father again. See commercial here

In the second commercial, we interview Susan Mullins, the remarkable daughter of Mary Burchard, reflecting on the life review interview. Susan says the recorded interview was the most wonderful time spent listening to her mother telling stories. Mary relives her piloting military aircraft in the clouds above America during World War II. Susan and her sister, Eileen McDargh, loved reminiscing in the sun with their mother. Though memories unfortunately fade with time, this life review video preserves Mary’s voice, her laugh, her smile and her extraordinary life journey that will now be passed down now from generation to generation.

The life review program is the brainchild of Donna Miller, Director of Volunteer Services at Hospice Care of the West. She creates these magical moments for families to come together and reminisce at a time when they’re feeling wrenched apart. These life review videos help the hospice patient and their family to pause and remember the good times they’ve shared together. For the children of hospice patients to be able to say that they’ve enjoyed this time with their parents in hospice is a tribute to our mission here at Our Celebration to Life.

To produce these authentic interviews with the children of hospice patients, we called on award-wining documentary filmmaker, Jay Gianukos, who has spent more than a decade filming life stories for families. Hospice Care of the West is the only hospice sitting down with their patients to video record precious life stories to pass on to their families.

These commercials are currently airing on Channel 6 in South Orange County. We hope the commercial series will help people understand the value of recording a legacy of memories for their families, especially at the end of life. Hospice Care of the West is a compass and guide on the end of life journey for these families. It’s not easy when you have to become a parent to your parent. But the life review video helped both of these children to remember the extraordinary lives their parents led even in their most fragile and vulnerable hour of life. Susan helps us all to realize that hospice and the life review video wasn’t just a gift

for her mother, but also for their entire family.

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On Mom’s last Christmas, we recreated all the nostalgic sights, sounds and smells of her childhood memories in England. It felt like a Charles Dickens’ Christmas. We burst open Christmas “crackers,” boxed party favors, and topped it off with Christmas pudding, a traditional English dessert.

As the holidays approached, I opened the kitchen cupboard and pulled out the green box holding all my mother’s holiday recipes. I carried it like you might carry the family jewels into her bedroom where she lay on a hospital bed. We’d learned before Halloween that the chemotherapy stopped working, and the IV keeping her alive could be discontinued when she chose to go into hospice.

On the last Christmas shared with our Mom, my brother, Ryan Carson, 19 years old, cooked a traditional English roast to evoke the scents of English Christmas past for our Mom. When I interviewed Mom, the day after, she said, “Having Ryan do the cooking, that was something special.” She was truly proud of him.

Since my younger brother and I knew the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas would be the last with our mother, Linda Carson, we wanted them to be special. Our holiday festivities usually revolve around the dinner table, but my mother couldn’t eat because the cancer had blocked her intestines.
I sat on the edge of her bed and pushed the green box toward her.
“What are you doing with that?” Mom asked.
“You’ll have to teach me how to make Thanksgiving dinner this year,” I said.
She opened the box and smiled proudly. At 26, I finally realized that traditions had the power to link generations and bond families together after a death.
On Thanksgiving morning, Mom became the director of the show. As the producer, I learned the secrets, shortcuts and addenda to her recipes. Dinner turned out just like Mom’s. Usually Mom said the prayer. On impulse, I did it.
After, I suggested we each share two things we were thankful for so that eating wasn’t the only activity at the table.
I began to feel a changing of the guard.
Usually during the first weeks of advent, Mom got the decorations from the garage, collected our Christmas lists, opened the advent calendars and transformed our home into a luminescent winter wonderland. She played carols, read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and the Nativity story. I could hardly fathom Christmas without her.
I needed to know the roots of these traditions. We talked about her fondest memories in England — waking up Christmas morning to the sound of wrapping paper rustling in a stocking at the foot of her bed.
I was struck when Mom said that most of the advent traditions I’d grown accustomed to started after my parents divorce when I was 7, my brother’s first Christmas. It dawned on me that the magic of Christmas was born of my mother’s attempt to deflect her grief and my father’s absence.

Reflections of Christmas past, my Mom, Linda Carson, my brother, Ryan Carson, and me in 1983 on the first advent after my parents’ divorce when Mom began to transform our home into a winter wonderland during the advent season and created the family traditions that live on today, even in her absence.

“I began to cling onto traditions much more once my life was brought to a standstill after the divorce,” Mom said. “I tried not to focus on the emptiness, the bleakness.”
After our talk, I had the inspiration to turn our darkness into a joyous celebration, just like Mom did. I retrieved the boxes of decorations. Mom gave me the address of the tree lot we’d gone to since I was a child. Since I love a Noble fir and she loves a Douglas fir, each year we traded off. I found a hybrid tree — a cross between a Noble and a Douglas. It was the perfect tree to canonize this last Christmas.
I invited Mom to join me as I decorated. At first she resisted, but with some cajoling and the help of morphine for her pain, I helped her down the stairs. As I placed ornaments on the tree, she shared the story of each one.
On Christmas morning, Mom woke up to the crackle of gifts in a stocking at the foot of her bed. She followed the sounds of clanging pans that grew louder as she descended the stairs. Her eyes widened at the sparkling lights in living room. The “Christmas Song” played as she turned toward the clatter and gasped. Ryan, my then 19-year-old brother, whirled around the kitchen preparing all the dishes to accompany the roast, decorated in fresh herbs and painted in English mustard.
At the dinner table, we burst open Christmas crackers, an English tradition that Mom had reminisced about. Loud bangs triggered an explosion of wrapping paper, cardboard, and toys spraying across the table. We slipped on our silly crepe-paper crowns. Then I asked each person to share a Christmas memory. I started.
“I’d have to say waking up at dawn every Christmas to the crackling of wrapping paper and gifts in my stocking at the foot of my bed is by far my favorite memory,” I said.
“I agree,” Ryan said.
We toasted Mom, followed by dessert — English bird’s-eye custard and Christmas pudding.
The next morning when I woke up, Mom called me into her bedroom.
“Denise, I want you to come in here with your tape recorder,” she said.
This is what she said, “Usually I am the one who plans everything and does everything, and this time…my daughter, from November on, was rushing here and there buying gifts, wrapping gifts and planning the food…Everything I would normally do, she did it and did it with style… Having Ryan do the cooking, that was something special.”
She proudly recounted his exquisite culinary creations.
“Well, I just wanted to get that down so we wouldn’t forget, because it was so special.”
My mother passed away in 2002 about six weeks after that memorable Christmas. For my brother and me, advent continues to be a special time when her spirit lives on in each ornament hung on the tree, the twinkling decorations turning my home into a winter wonderland and the Christmas crackers we burst at the dinner table.
I can almost hear her voice in the Christmas carols we play and when I read “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” to my 2-year old daughter. I believe Santa Claus will be leaving a stocking full of gifts at the foot of the bed for her.

Celebrate last holidays
• Find out which holiday traditions are meaningful to your loved one.
• Let your loved one know you will carry on special traditions and stories to the next generation.
• Ask your loved one to coach you on family recipes.
• Invite family and friends to bring a memory to share.
• Encourage people to share, e.g. making a wish for the person next to him.
• Bring new traditions that will honor your loved one.

The post Last holiday with Mom underscores tradition appeared first on Our Life Celebrations.

Mary Buchard is a Hospice Care of the West patient who graced us with her amazing life review video and her service to our country as a female pilot in World War II.

Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor young men lined up at enlistment offices all across America to serve their country in World War II. Some two years later,  Dr. Mary Burchard, peered out of her medical practice window in Pennsylvania. She was an airplane pilot hobbyist and yearned to fly fulltime. Below, the main street bustled with new enlistees marching off to war. She left her practice that afternoon and told her Daddy, “I want to join the military.”

Dr. Mary was already breaking barriers as the only woman doctor in town. Her brother for some reason couldn’t serve and she wanted to represent her family in serving their country. Mary exemplifies the Greatest Generation, yet her military story is uniquely told through the lens of a woman. Mary valued her parents, church and her country. She felt the call to serve just like the young GIs.

When her father finally gave his blessing, she left behind a busy medical practice and marched down to city hall with her flight log in hand. The enlistment officer said to her, “We’ve been looking for someone like you.”

Today, some seven decades later during a video recorded life review interview on the patio of her home in Laguna Hills, Mary looks up at the sky. She relishes the roar of an airplane flying by.

Mary Burchard is a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) and received the Congressional Medal of Honor for her service during World War II.

“I hear an airplane,” she says coming out of her reverie. “Lucky devil.”

Mary recalls the first time she took flight in York, Pennsylvania. Her boyfriend was a flight

instructor. Finally, after many days of watching other people go up in the air for flight lessons. Mary turned to her boyfriend and said, “How much to go up?”

“Nothing, for you,” he said. She climbed into the cockpit of the airplane. Once above the clouds, he asked Mary if she was ready to take over. With ease, she flew the plane.

“You’re a born pilot,” he said. Not much later, Mary bought and flew a plane of her own.

At age 95 years old, in the company of her proud daughters, Susan

Mullins and Eileen McDargh, she recalls piloting military aircraft in the skies over America during World War II. Donna Miller, the Director of Volunteer Services at Hospice Care of the West, leads the interview with questions from behind the video camera.

Mary Burchard with her boyfriend, Will, in her early pilot days. Courtesy Susan Mullins

A volunteer video editor will then mix the video with music and a montage of pictures cheap viagra from the family archives, so that Mary’s remarkable history will be preserved. Though in her final season of life and physically feeble, she exudes courage, faith and strength that will no doubt inspire generations to come as she recounts very rare military experiences.

In 1942 there were so few pilots to serve in combat that the military was in search of women to fly military aircraft stateside. About 25,000 women volunteered to join Women Airforce Service Pilots, about 1,800 were accepted and trained. At the end of rigorous training to “Fly the Army Way” on the Avenger Field in Sweet Water Texas, 1,078 women pilots graduated and join the armed forces. Mary and her graduating class became historical figures, inspirational women role models.

“We were considered officers,” Mary proudly recalls.

After her service ended, she joined the Red Cross to open social canteens for soldiers awaiting their orders to return home. She would dance the night away at the officers club. She recalled playing piano in the recreation hall overseas. She even sang songs during the interview from that era. At the end of the war, she rode home on a troops ship where she met her husband Jack McDargh.

With Donna’s questions, Mary reflects on becoming a mother after the war. She and her daughters sing songs together just as they would growing up. Their reminiscing turns to family vacations and their last trip to Ireland.

Mary Burchard embraced by her daughters, Eileen McDargh and Susan Mullins. Courtesy of Susan Mullins

Mary’s daughters lean in to get closer to their Mom and then they hug.

“You are the best Mom in the world,” Susan says. Eileen echoes the sentiment.

“You know I love you more than you know,” Mary says embracing her daughters. For a moment, the veteran pilot softens to bask in the warmth of their affection.

As the interview closes, Donna asks,

“What do you want your family to remember about you?”

Mary smiles as she looks at her daughters.

“I was very daring!”

The post World War II Woman Pilot Takes Flight appeared first on Our Life Celebrations.