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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Denise Carson, author of the book Parting Ways, accepts the Outstanding Program Achievement Award at the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association Awards Reception in Santa

Congratulations to Hospice Care of the West for winning the Outstanding Program Achievement Award given by the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association (CHAPCA). The award recognizes an innovative program that stands as a model for other hospices and end-of-life care providers. CHAPCA is dedicated to promoting and strengthening the delivery of hospice care for terminally ill patients and their families through education and advocacy.

At the CHAPCA Awards Ceremony in Santa Clara, I stepped up to receive the award honoring our mission to celebrate the lives of hospice patients. The inscription on the award read: Denise Carson and Hospice Care of the West Outstanding Program Achievement for Advancing End-of-Life Care. I gave an acceptance speech alongside Debbie Robson, Executive Director of Hospice Care of the West. Many doctors, nurses, social workers and volunteer coordinators from other hospices came up after the ceremony to congratulate us and thank me for the dedication to spreading the word about hospice to the public. They were so inspired and loved what I said in my speech about our commitment to changing the conversation about hospice from dying to living and celebrating life.

From conception to the birth of this blog, OurLifeCelebrations.com, I envisioned that we could be a resource for the community and beacon for other hospices on how to bring intimacy, preparation, participation and celebration to a stage of life that has been alienated for over a century now. This dream and vision is beginning to be realized. I’m so grateful to CHAPCA for this award and the inspiration my parents gave me in their own end of life journeys. I want to thank Debbie Robson, fearless leader at Hospice Care of the West, who believed in the vision of this blog, the team at Hospice Care of the West for carrying out this mission in their everyday interactions with their patients, and Donna Miller who started the Life Review Video Program that attracted me to Hospice Care of the West while I was writing my book, Parting Ways.

Today, we have brought this mission home into the Hospice Care of the West community with Reminiscing Corners to video record members of the hospice team i.e. nurses, social workers, spiritual care coordinators, home health aides and office support staff sharing their life wisdom. We play these videos at our bi-monthly Celebration! Thank you to Jay Gianukos, our resident life story documentary filmmaker who makes these Reminiscing Corners and Celebrations magic. The goal is to renew and invigorate the team in caring everyday for hospice patients. We take this mission beyond on our walls by inviting folks at seniors centers to sit at our Reminiscing Corners with our documentary filmmaker to preserve their life stories.

Below is the story that went out in the CHAPCA Trendsetters Newsletter about the Award:

The Award for Outstanding Program Achievement was created in 2004 to recognize a program or agency

that has created and implemented an innovative program in end of life care. This year was a bit different in that the award honored an individual and a hospice agency that made an impact on their community. The recipients for 2012 are Denise Carson, a columnist for the Orange County Register, and author of Parting Ways: New Rituals and Celebrations of Life’s Passing and Hospice Care of the West, represented by Debbie Robson, Executive Director.

Denise became familiar with Hospice Care of the West when researching her book. This led to a collaboration that has raised the Hospice Care of the West’s profile in the community, increased their census, and most important, led to improved and enhanced end of life experience for their patients.

After the book was published, Denise went to the hospice and suggested the creation of a blog that would serve as an online resource for the community. Working together with hospice staff, Our Celebration of Life (now Our Life Celebrations) was born in 2011. The blog features the agency’s life review project, along with many other innovative programs developed by the hospice. These programs include their organization of high school students called Dream Catchers who make last wishes come true for hospice patients, memory pillows created by volunteer seamstresses made out of patients clothes for their bereaved families and sitting vigils to assure patients do not die alone. In addition to the blog, Denise has been involved with creating a bi-monthly gathering of employees called Celebration, and she is currently designing a series of classes to educate the community on what is hospice, how to be a compassionate companion, how to record a life interview, how to create end of life plans and a lasting legacy. These programs will not only be available in the community, but also online.

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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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Bessie Anderson, 105, of Laguna Niguel is flying high as she fulfills her dream of soaring in the Great Park Balloon. CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Shortly after her 105th birthday, hospice patient Bessie Anderson prepares to go up for a balloon ride at the Great Park in Irvine. The big orange helium balloon is nearly 74 feet in diameter. On the flight deck, Bessie is tucked into a wheelchair pushed by her granddaughter, Sheryl Villapania, 48, of Murrietta, who uses a wipe board to communicate to her. Though Bessie’s hearing is diminished, she works around this and continues to engage in conversation.

Bessie Anderson, 105, of Laguna Niguel is flying high as she fulfills her dream of soaring in the Great Park Balloon. The Irvine attraction flies 400 ft. high with a 360-degree view spanning up to 40 miles. Dream Catchers, made up of high school volunteers, grant last wishes for hospice patients. Anderson was thrilled with the views on this clear day and was grateful to everyone who made her dream come true.

“Are you scared?” Sheryl writes on the board.

Bessie reads the board then beams and says, “No, I’m excited.”

Sheryl Villapania of Murrieta, from left, wheels her grandma Bessie Anderson, 105, towards her dream ride as Tesoro High junior Emily Beals, 16, Dream Catchers president, gets a hug from Nancy Nicolosi, Hospice Care of the West nurse. Anderson’s wish was to fly on the Great Park Balloon in Irvine. Dream Catchers volunteers grant last wishes for hospice patients. CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Bessie, of Laguna Nigel, is dressed up for her adventure flight. Her white hair is curled, blush enhances her cheekbones and a pearl necklace punctuates her coral silk blouse. Since the Great Park started free balloon rides in 2007, she has wanted to go up but never quite made it.

When her nurse, Nancy Nicolosi, 52, from Hospice Care of the West, talked of her recent flight, Bessie sat up in bed.

“I want to go for a balloon ride at the Great Park,” she said.

Nancy called on Dream Catchers, a group of high school volunteers who make last wishes come true for hospice patients. Emily Beals, 16, the new president of the organization, answered the call. She is a junior at Tesoro High School and recently took over from the founder of Dream Catchers, Caitlin Crommett, 17, who went off to college and started a chapter at Notre Dame in Indiana.

Since the organization began two years ago, Dream Catchers has granted 22 dying wishes.

Caitlin’s inspiration for making dreams happen for hospice patients came from volunteering since seventh grade for Hospice Care of the West and a scene from the movie “Patch Adams.”  In the movie, the doctor is focused on not just treating the disease but caring for the patients. The spark for Dream Catchers came when the doctor inspires a depressed old woman to eat again by making her dream — of plunging into a pool of spaghetti — a reality.

The Dream Catchers have taken hospice patients for one last sail on the Pacific, a walk with their family down Main Street at Disneyland and out for a special reunion dinner with family and friends, just to name a few. One of their goals is to reunite families for a shared moment when time is running out.

The balloon ride is the 23rd dream and Emily’s first as president of Dream Catchers. She reserved the balloon for Bessie with park operators.

As she arrives at the balloon flight deck, Emily tries to mask her jitters. Though there are four generations between them, Emily is more afraid of riding in the balloon than Bessie is.

“I would never do this on my own. I’m only doing this for Bessie,” she says. “My life is on the line here.”

Emily nervously strolls alongside Bessie, Sheryl and Nancy. The balloon operators strap Bessie in and electronically lift her onto the gondola. Bessie smiles with glee. Sheryl wheels her grandmother along the gondola edge as they choose a good lookout point. Emily holds on to Nancy, the nurse, as they step into the gondola.

The gate locks them in and they are ready for take off.

Up and up and up, the balloon takes flight, and Bessie says, “It’s so smooth and so quiet.”

She recalls how loud a ride on the Goodyear blimp was in the 1920s and then reflects on that time when people would step out of their houses to watch the blimp fly by.

Bessie Anderson, 105, of Laguna Niguel, is asked if the Great Park Balloon flight really was great by Emily Beals, 16, the Dream Catchers president. The charity makes last wishes come true for hospice patients. CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The balloon reaches its zenith and floats. Emily’s

knuckles turn white as she grips the side of the gondola and looks out at the horizon, not daring to look down. The wind blows through Bessie’s hair and tickles her cheeks. She looks down at Orange County below without any sign of fear; she remembers that it was all orange groves when she was growing up.

“It’s like being in a skyscraper,” she says. “How high are we?”

The balloon operator says we are 40 stories high, about 400 feet up with a 360-degree view. When the balloon starts its descent, Emily looks relived. Upon landing, Bessie is glowing.

“Ahhhhh, that was a thrill! You know everybody doesn’t get to do that.”

Tears flow down Sheryl’s cheeks.

“I love to see her happy like that.” Sheryl says her father, Bessie’s son, just died in April. At the time, Bessie had pneumonia and suffered a heart attack that sent her into hospice care, which is available to those with six months or less to live.

“She still enjoys herself, every little piece of life,” Sheryl says.

“Yes, we did it,” Nancy says to Bessie.

After the flight, Caitlin’s Mom, Colleen Crommett, spreads a buffet of sandwiches on tables near the flight deck. As Bessie enjoys the lunch, her granddaughter, Sheryl explains on the wipe board how Emily organized this balloon ride. Bessie is amazed and beckons Emily to her side.

“Thank you so much,” she says with glistening eyes. “It was very sweet of you, dear.”

“You’re welcome Bessie,” Emily writes on the board.

“I know it

was a lot of work,” Bessie says to Emily. “If somebody told me I would get to do something like this at my age, I would never have believed them. So, I did. Everybody doesn’t get to ride in the big balloon.”

The story originally appeared in my Orange County Register Column Parting Ways. Contact the writer: denise@denisecarson.com

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Preparing to appear at the grandest celebration of his life.

Your 15 minutes have arrived. Roll out the red carpet. A living funeral is the grandest celebration of your life with a twist—you, the honoree, are living and present to hear the eulogies, praises and farewells given before death. This gathering of family, friends, neighbors and colleagues is a ceremony or party to celebrate a person with a life-limiting illness. If you know your time is short why wait?

Mark Twain, the astute observer of human behavior and one of the greatest authors in American history, portrayed his fascination of eavesdropping on his own funeral in the novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” published in 1902. The protagonist Tom Sawyer said in the midst of the fanfare, “It was the proudest moment of his whole life.”

In researching my book Parting Ways, I’ve come to realize that these pre-death rituals that seem rare are on the rise from the east to west coasts. People are toasting and roasting family members and friends with limited time left. Some look like a cross between a wedding and funeral. These formal or informal get-togethers take place at a home, community center, house of worship, hotel banquet hall, a favorite restaurant, a theater, or any place that would honor the person. I’ve seen the honoree dressed in everything from a hospital gown to a tuxedo. Others are more somber with collective prayers, Psalms or Holy book readings, anointing and last rites given by clergy.

As I mention in my column about a living tribute in the OC Register, “The gathering becomes a stage for people to share memories, sometimes songs, poems and lifetime achievement awards that express: thank you, I love you, I’ll remember you. And goodbye.

Some families suggest that attendees bring mementos, such as a picture or an item from a treasured family vacation, to help focus the reminiscing party. These celebrations help families prepare for the inevitable, and bond while focusing on life when they often feel helpless in the face of death.”

The funeral in living funeral tends to put people off because they feel like they’re digging the grave too early, but quite the contrary gathering to eulogize and celebrate one’s life before he or she dies is the antithesis. These pre-death ceremonial farewells have been coined living wake, celebration of life, friendship service, living tribute, reminiscing party and sendoff. No matter what these personalized rituals are called the most important element is that a special time is carved out for intimates to express love, gratitude and those things we should’ve, would’ve, or could’ve, said if we found the right time.

The first time, I read about a living funeral was in the book Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, Life’s Greatest Lessons by Mitch Albom. Five million copies of this book were sold and it was

on the New York Times Best Seller List. Morrie Schwartz, dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease, goes to a funeral and realizes that his late friend didn’t get to hear all of the wonderful speeches so he decides to have a funeral before his death. He invited his family and friends to come to his home and say the things they would’ve said at his funeral. At Morrie’s living funeral in the Emmy winning made for TV movie produced by Oprah Winfrey, gospel singers perform giving the home ceremony a reverence that it so deserves.

As I trace the history of living funerals in my book, Parting Ways, I discovered Morrie awakened a ritual from our past because the act of gathering around the dying person to uplift them actually dates back centuries when dying was a social affair attended by the family and community. The dying person would give long-winded speeches about his or her wisdom gained in life and family members would gather to listen and express love and gratitude, but the ritual died in the twentieth-century when death moved out of the home and community and into the hospital. Now, with the prevalence of hospice, we’re seeing an awakening of this communal, familial ritual

because more people are taking their end of life journeys in the comforts of home, family and community rather than estranged in a sterile institution.

Sometimes, people don’t learn the most interesting attributes and experiences about a person until the funeral. So, the living funeral offers a time to really learn about the “whole life” of a person. Today, people lead such splintered lives spread far apart in many cases from their birthplace and their families. It takes a death to unite people from distant locals in one place. A living funeral maybe the last time a person joins with all those he or she loved and experienced life with and vice versa.

When I interviewed John Hogan, former president of the National Funeral Directors Association, for my book, Parting Ways, he recalled a man dying of cancer, who asked to have a living wake in the viewing room of his New York City funeral home. Friends and family came to the funeral home viewing room to collectively reminisce and the dying man sat on a throne like a king relishing every last moment shared with his beloved court, instead of laying dead in a casket.

So when might a person chose to indulge in such a ritual? Today, most people know when their time is short and the body is in irreparable decline. Many people deny it to themselves and those around them for self-preservation and protection of the family. The living funeral, also known as a celebration of life or living wake, is so instrumental in stimulating the family and friends to begin to talk about the possibility of the end. It’s not talking about death but rather life. I’ve come to the conclusion that a living funeral or living wake honors a person in a way that no milestone or birthday celebration is able to over the course of a life. In those culminating hours, family, friends and colleagues mark the sum of all those milestones and birthdays, a total life mission accomplished.

A terminal illness strips a person of his or her autonomy, individuality and social identity. Experts often call this a social death because a person maybe bound to a wheelchair or a bed. This consequence makes a person feel like a half-human. This is the hour when a person feeling quite vulnerable could find renewal in hearing about his or her life shared through the cherished lens of others rather than after he or she takes the last breath. The ritual binds the honoree, family and friends in reciprocity. Everyone is uplifted in a way they thought impossible at this stage of life, because attendees are given the microphone to say those words of remembrance and know the honoree is receiving it. That is so gratifying especially at an hour when we as humans feel completely out of control. They call the end of life awful. When people gather for collective reminiscence everyone is awe-inspired.  A good ritual shatters isolation and leads the way to transformation. In the end, it’s a remarkable gift to give as a parting gift to the honoree and an extraordinary memory to leave in the minds of survivors.

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My mother, Linda Carson, and me, Denise Carson, on a walk in Big Bear in the last year of her life.

In the Orange County Register, I reflected on some of the people who exemplify living richly in life’s final frontier. Read my Parting Ways Column below…

I was at a baby shower for my childhood friend last week when her mother-in-law, who is in her 70s, came up to me and said, “For lack of a better word, I feel envy for your Mom. You took such care to make her last days as good as possible.”
It is easy to pair envy with living, but not with dying.

Yet, I understood what she meant.

Cancer aside, my mother lived life her way until the moment of her very last breath at home surrounded by family and friends on Feb. 10, 2002. It’s the tenth anniversary of those last weeks of her life that inspired my book “Parting Ways” and this column. Both are a collection of stories that invite people to walk alongside individuals and families who have chosen not to spend their final hours alone in a hospital.
Though it was tough, we celebrated my mother’s 54th birthday on Jan. 9 at home, knowing it would be her last. Family and friends joined us. We surprised her with a group of praise-music singers and a guitarist, and it was a transcendent experience to sing “Amazing Grace” with a group of intimates in my living room. This beat sitting in a hospital waiting for her to die.
In her last week, friends and family gathered in our home to pay tribute to her life and collectively reminisce in what I now call a living wake. Since I know memories fade, I video-recorded her stories, lessons and wisdom. I purposely recorded her saying, “I love you, my love,” smiling and laughing.
Ten years later, those are the heirlooms I cherish most in her absence. We all have people in our lives who inspire us, touch us, mentor us, move us, and they live on as our examples even after death. My mother and all the individuals I’ve encountered while writing this column invigorated me. Their final journeys model how to walk clear-eyed into a stage of life that is fraught with fear for so many of us.
So, I want to pause as we enter a new year to reflect and say “You’ll be remembered.” They’ve sparked a connection within the community of readers and followers who send emails of gratitude and reminiscences about loved ones they’ve lost.
Bessie Anderson will be remembered in our community as the daring 105 year old who wanted to take a balloon ride at the Great Park. And did. I received a thank you card from Sheryl Villapania, her granddaughter, who shared that Bessie was thrilled to be in the newspaper. She even autographed copies for people in her community. She died just 10 days after the article was published. Imagine taking a hot air balloon ride in your last weeks of life.

I still get a buzz, as if I drank champagne, when I reflect on the three-hour receiving line at the living funeral of Dee J. Valentine, a World War II veteran, elder of his church and star in his retirement community Costa del Sol. He didn’t let going into hospice stop him from celebrating his 100 years of life with 200 friends and family from across the country. He reveled in the reunions and embraces. His advice to me about longevity was: “You have to live for the future…even today I look forward to growing and make life better for others.”

at White, 89, of Mission Viejo, holds a 1925 photo of her mom, Helen, and herself, both wearing fur coats. She grew up in the Shelton Gang in Illinois. After school at Long Beach Poly Tech, she’d water taxi to her uncle’s ship, a floating casino, three miles offshore of Long Beach, where she’d play roulette and eat dinner on board. CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

He continues to grow and live! Hospice wasn’t about a death sentence for Dee J. It was about finding the kind of care to enable him to keep living independently at home among his family and community. Though the doctor has to say the patient has six months or less to live to receive hospice, Dee J. has lived on hospice for one year. He didn’t want to be institutionalized. His family is making that last wish a reality for him. My hope is one day these kinds of stories will drown out those in our community of parting ways with our aging loved ones in a cold, isolated institution.

Pat White will forever be a legend to me. I believe we must sit down with our family members to video-record their history, because you never know what could be living in the past of your grandmother or grandfather. I’ll never forget being transported to the underworld of prohibition told through the riveting reflections of 89-year-old Pat who grew up in a gangster family that “ran East Louis and Southern Illinois, the way Al Capone ran Chicago.” She told these stories for the first time and had almost carried them to the grave. That would have been a shame. Today, her zest and tales will be continue in her family lore but now also reside in our collective memory.
In my book “Parting Ways,” Elizabeth Vega, a journalist turned life-review guide for hospice patients, shared her belief passed down from the Aztecs that we die three deaths. The first death occurs when your body exhales the last breath and the heart stops beating. The second death is marked when your body is lowered into the ground, returned to the elements of Mother Earth and slips from the sight of the living. The most definitive of the three is when your memory vanishes and there is no one left to remember you.
I invite you to send in a photograph of someone you’ve loved and lost. Share with me a story of an individual who has set an example for you or recall a cherished moment that will live on in your memory. Our collective memory can help us challenge the third death. We might not be able to achieve immortality for our loved ones, but I can be sure that even 10 years after they die, their lives guide our tomorrows and even garner the envy of others.

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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.

The life review of Pat White, patient at Hospice Care of the West, hits top story at the OC Register inspiring a Part II.

Pat White’s “tell all” life review interview hit top story at the OC Register with more than 30,000 hits and Yahoo News. The reader response inspired  me to write a part II in the OC Register. Read the column below.

Elizabeth Carroll, 37, arrived at her dying grandmother’s room with the newspaper article revealing the family’s secret connection to notorious bootlegging gangs during Prohibition.

“Nana, did you read this yet?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes,” Pat White beamed. “Well, I thought about it and I wasn’t going to talk, but then I thought “What are they going to do? Kill me?'” This attitude, Pat was proud to say was her mother’s spirit living on in her.

At 89, “Nana” was dying in a board and care in Mission Viejo. She tried to stay positive and overcome the question “Why is God not taking me?” that reverberated in her mind.

“There must be a reason I’m still here,” she thought.

The life review of Pat White, patient at Hospice Care of the West, hits top story at the OC Register inspiring a Part II.

Pat had kept her family secrets for decades and almost took them to her grave. But Donna Miller, director of volunteer services at Hospice Care of the West, arrived with a video camera to record an interview that let Pat retrace her childhood. She recounted growing up with a bombshell 1920s flapper as a mother and some of America’s most infamous gangsters as her stepfathers.

I participated in that interview and wrote a column. As she looked over the newspaper story with a picture of her and her mother in matching fur coats, Pat said, “OK, I’m done,” with a sigh of relief.

Elizabeth saw an instant peace and release in Pat that day. One week after the article was published, Pat died.

I had a chance to sit down and talk with Elizabeth after Pat’s death to get her side of the story, as many readers asked what her grandchildren thought about these family secrets being published in the Register.

“It’s a huge accomplishment for her,” Elizabeth said. “At the end of her life, literally on her deathbed, you took her from a frail, weak woman to the top of the world. And she could finally let go.”

Elizabeth Carroll, 37, and her grandmother, Pat White, on their usual Saturday afternoon shopping in San Clemente. After Elizabeth’s grandfather and mother died, Pat use to say “It’s just you and me, kid.” Photo Courtesy of Elizabeth Carroll

Because of my experience interviewing my mother as she was dying and following Donna video-recording many life reviews, I’ve seen that recording those stories improves the end-of-life experience for the terminally ill and their families.

A study on the effect of “dignity therapy” on terminally ill patients was published in the medical journal The Lancet in July. The research documented the value of terminally ill patients sharing their stories in a recorded interview, which is transcribed to create a document the patient can

give to family members.

In dignity therapy, the dying are able to pass on their stories, lessons learned in life, last wishes and hopes for the next generation. Dignity therapy focuses on letting the dying guide the next generation and find strength or comfort in knowing that they will leave behind something lasting.

Researchers have also conducted studies with grieving families and reported in the Journal of Palliative Medicine that nearly 80 percent of the families said therapy enhanced their loved one’s dignity and the spoken legacy brought comfort to the living.

Elizabeth understood this implicitly. One of her biggest regrets after her mother died was that she didn’t have any recordings of her voice. So, she began saving all of her voice messages from her grandmother. She has nearly 16, which means her voicemail is almost always full. Since her mother and grandfather died, Elizabeth and her grandmother have become very close.

“It’s just you and me, kid,” Pat would often say.

Elizabeth Carroll of Laguna Beach is framed by images of her grandma’s life. Images of Carroll, her husband and grandma on their world travels are included, bottom right. The posters were featured at White’s memorial reception. CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

At the celebration of Pat’s life at the Ole Hanson Beach Club in San Clemente, Elizabeth and I reflected on how Pat had turned a childhood plagued with gangsters into a life free of any trace of this past.

“(Pat) was born into a life that she didn’t choose, yet she didn’t let it define her,” Elizabeth said. “She never drank, swore, smoked or did drugs. She went to school as a young woman and learned a trade in photography and rose in a man’s world working at Douglas Aircraft.”

Although her grandmother is gone, her legacy continues, and artifacts of her secret life intrigue Elizabeth. She knows the stories behind most of Pat’s jewel heirlooms. But not the more obscure items: The ballpoint pen that shoots nine rounds of bullets or the pen that releases tear gas; the 33-revolver that she slept with beneath her pillow; the velvet lined violin case that concealed a liquor bottle during Prohibition.

Some of the answers are in the life review video Pat left behind.

Hospice volunteer Bob Rank edited the interview into a documentary with pictures and music. When Elizabeth watched the video on the eve of Pat’s 90th birthday, tears of joy flooded her face.

“I was mesmerized even though I know her better than anyone. It was almost like watching a documentary on the History Channel of someone I didn’t know,” she said. “My husband and I just held hands and were crying. We didn’t want it to end. What a gift.”

At the end of Pat’s life celebration, Elizabeth gave copies of the newspaper column to her five other grandchildren and promised copies of the life review video would follow. Then she asked everyone to raise a glass and gave the toast Pat used:

“When nights are long and moons are full and you are lonely too, if you but mention once my name, I’ll know and know you knew. And take a picture of a cloud, the kind we used to see and when you drink that same old drink, turn down a glass for me.”

Dignity Therapy survey

Tell me a little about your life history, particularly the parts that you either remember most or think are the most important? When did you feel most alive?

Are there specific things that you would want your family to know about you, and are there particular things you would want them to remember?

What are the most important roles you have had in life (eg, family roles, vocational roles, community-service roles)? Why were they so important to you and what do you think you accomplished in those roles?

What are your most important accomplishments, and what do you feel most proud of?

Are there particular things that you feel still need to be said to your loved ones or things that you would want to take the time to say once again?

What are your hopes and dreams for your loved ones?

What have you learned about life that you would want to pass along to others? What advice or words of guidance would you wish to pass along to your son, daughter, husband, wife, parents, or other(s)?

Are there words or perhaps even instructions that you would like to offer your family to help prepare them for the future?

In creating this permanent record, are there other things that you would like included?

The post Granddaughter proud of her grandmother’s legacy appeared first on Our Life Celebrations.

Recently, I was teaching a class on end of life conversations and creating an end-of-life plan. As I read stories from my book Parting Ways, some of the ladies in the class said with such gusto,

“That’s how I want to go!”

I beamed at that moment because I realized they got it.

They were inspired by the individuals I read about walking with their eyes wide open and their families prepared into life’s final frontier. By choosing not to deny but instead prepare for the inevitable, these families didn’t waste time spinning blindly in unknown territory. They chose to chart a direction that I like to call an end-of-life plan.

The medical community calls knowing “how you want to go” or “how you want to be cared for at the end of your life” ahead of time—your advance directive. These are legal documents that provide you with a way to convey your decisions and wishes about end of life with your health care team, your family and friends in the event that you can’t communicate later on.  I see these advance directives as part of the process of creating an end of life plan.

In my experience, the end-of-life plan is your exit strategy that is a negotiation between you, your family and the medical community. Just like a birth plan determines how a woman wishes to give birth—detailing the birth team, place of birth, individuals she wants present and treatments she wants to accept or forego. The creation of this plan involves advanced communication and planning between her baby’s father, her support circle and her medical team. The process of devising a plan helps her to cope with the fears of being out of control when entering the unknown territory of giving birth.

Likewise, the end of life plan details an individual’s last wishes, legacy for the next generations and an exit strategy to give to a loved one who will be the gatekeeper and advocate of this sacred document. The creation of this plan involves in advance opening the lines of communication with your medical team, researching your options, talking with your support circle, defining where you want to spend your end of life journey, reviewing your life lived and determining what treatments you want to accept or forego. The end-of-life plan is not an easy one to face but having one solidified in your mind and/or written on paper, in my experience, can transform a frightening period of your life into an awe-inspiring journey.

There are several ways that you can start the process of devising an end of life plan. The medical community is versed in

various formats that I’ve detailed in our end-of-life planning section but repeat here for easy reference.

 Living Will/ Advance Directive

Your living will is a legal document that is used in the medical field to provide doctors and your family with your decisions about life-saving and life-prolonging treatments, i.e.

life support like a ventilator or a heart shock, in the event you become incapacitated. In this document you state who is your healthcare proxy to carry out these decisions for you. On the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s website entitled Caring Connections, you can download your state’s advance directive. As stated on the site, a living will, allows you to document your wishes concerning medical treatments at the end of life.

 Before you prepare your advance directive:

• Get information on the types of life-sustaining treatments that are available.
• Decide what types of treatment you would want or would not want.
• Share your end-of-life wishes and preferences with your loved ones.

Also on the Caring Connections site is information to help you decide ahead of time who would make your medical decisions for you in the event that you are unable and also how you should store this document. This “Health Agent” would be the person who will carry out your wishes in the living will. There are also instructions on how to store your living will. Below are recommendations to ensure it is utilized in your time of need.

• Paper copies or digital copies of the living will must be portable and accessible anywhere in the world.
• They must be available in a timely manner.
• They must be in a safe place, protected from theft, fire, flood or other natural disasters.

POLST

Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatments

The Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatments is a recognized end of life planning document among the healthcare community. The POLST as described on the site allows healthcare professionals to become aware of the patient’s wishes for care and honor them. The POLST form is a physician order that is representative of the patient’s desires and is instrumental in focusing on the conversation before you become seriously ill. The POLST does not replace the Advance Health Care Directive (AHCD).  ACHD allows you to name a healthcare decision maker if in the future you are unable to communicate your wishes for yourself.

Visit www.capolst.org

Five Wishes

There is an excellent resource called The Five Wishes that combines the living will and last wishes into one document that can be ordered online. It’s filled with questions and suggests that help your family and doctor know the following:

•    Who you want to make health care decisions for you when you can’t make them.

•    The kind of medical treatment you want or don’t want.

•    How comfortable you want to be.

•    How you want people to treat you.

•    What you want your loved ones to know.

Last but certainly not least, is writing your ethical will that will guide you in documenting your legacy—the values, wisdom and life stories you want to pass on to your children and grandchildren. This is good instrument to help your family segue into having meaningful end of life conversations. As I always say, first you have to talk about life before you can enter the discussion about end of life.

The post Writing Your End-of-Life Plan and Advance Directive appeared first on Our Life Celebrations.

I want to congratulate the researchers of the recent Dignity Therapy study published in the Lancet Oncology. The study demonstrates the value of recording a spoken legacy of an individual’s life reflections and hopes for the next generations to pass on to loved ones before death. It’s not easy to place a quantitative value on dignity.

Researchers conclude “based on the findings of this study, clinicians should consider dignity therapy a viable therapeutic approach, which can enhance end-of-life experience for patients and families confronting death.”

The novel psychotherapy entailed audio recording interviews with patients facing six months or less of live. The interviewers stimulated patients to share life recollections and lessons that the patient would like his or her family to remember and hopes and wishes for loved ones the patient would have to leave behind. The recorded interview is transcribed into a generitivity document for the patient to give family members.

Donna Miller, founder of the Life Review Video program at Hospice Care of the West, video records the life review interview of a patient.

This study helps us to understand the value in the life review videos, the brainchild of Donna Miller, director of volunteer services for Hospice Care of the West. For the past five years, I’ve been following Donna video record life review interviews with hospice patients. The interview is then edited with photos and music into life review video that the patient can leave behind for his family. I knew the value of what Donna was giving to patients because I video and audio recorded a series of interviews with my mother reflecting on her life in the months leading up to her death. As I write about in my book, Parting Ways: New Rituals and Celebrations of Life’s Passing, my mother exemplified a picture of dignity in motion in the last months, days and hours of her life. I also shadow Donna and another life review guides in the book to report patients improved sense of dignity because of their life stories are recorded to share with their families and communities.

In my book research, I also interviewed the Harvey Max Chochinov, the principal investigator on phase one of the Dignity Therapy study. He explained to me something I often share with families approaching end of life. One of the biggest assaults on our dignity at the end of life is that nothing of who or what I am will live on after I die.

Dignity Therapy focuses on generativity that researchers describe as “the ability to guide the next generation, encompassing how patients might find strength or comfort in knowing that they will leave behind something lasting and transcendent after death.”

Harvey Max Chonchinov, lead researcher on Dignity Therapy, discovered that the biggest assault on one’s dignity is that nothing of who or what I am will live on after I die.

The randomized study researched 326 patients with a life expectancy of six months or less, receiving palliative care in a hospital or community setting in Canada, the United States and Australia. The other two models of care in the study included testing 111 patients assigned standard palliative care and 107 in client-centered care that focuses on issues of here and now i.e. the psychological distress of the illness but not generativity. There were 108 patients assigned Dignity Therapy. This second phase of the study is a herculean effort in establishing a randomized study of comparative patient experiences across three different methods of end of life care. Chochinov and his researchers concluded that Dignity Therapy provided an enhanced sense of purpose, continued sense of self, and overall sense of dignity.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s difficult to place a value on dignity but the researchers assess that “the therapeutic effect was often ‘profound and poignant’ on those who received Dignity Therapy over those in the study who did not.”

In a couple of examples reported in the study, a 72-year-old woman with bowel cancer stated that “[Dignity Therapy] brought to the forefront that I have to prepare my family to the best of my ability.”

Another 56-year-old woman said: “Mostly, I want my family to know that I’m okay with dying and they must move on. The therapy showed me that I am not the cancer, I am still in here. I am so grateful for that because I lost myself….It really helped me remember who I am.”

In the first phase of the Dignity Therapy in 2005, Chochinov and his researchers reported significant results in the 100 terminally ill patients who participated:

• 91% were satisfied with Dignity Therapy
• 76% reported a heightened sense of dignity
• 68% an increased sense of purpose
• 67% a heightened sense of meaning
• 47% an increased will to live
• 81% that Dignity Therapy had been or would be
  cialis online

  of help to their family

Evaluations post-interview with family members reported:

• 78% reported Dignity Therapy enhanced the patient’s dignity
• 72% reported Dignity Therapy heightened the meaning of life for the patient
• 78% said the generitivity document from the therapy session was a comfort to them in their time of grief
• 95% said they would recommend Dignity Therapy to other patients and their families.

These Dignity Therapy studies illuminate the benefits of spoken legacies and life review videos for both the patients and their families. Below are the questions used in the study.

• Tell me a little about your life history, particularly the parts that you either remember most or think are the most important? When did you feel most alive?

• Are there specific things that you would want your family to know about you, and are there particular things you would want them to remember?

• What are the most important roles you have had in life (eg, family roles, vocational roles, community-service roles)? Why were they so important to you and what do you think you accomplished in those roles?
• What are your most important accomplishments, and what do you feel most proud of?

• Are there particular things that you feel still need to be said to your loved ones or things that you would want to take the time to say once again?

• What are your hopes and dreams for your loved ones?

• What have you learned about life that you would want to pass along to others? What advice or words of guidance would you wish to pass along to your son, daughter, husband, wife, parents, or other(s)?

• Are there words or perhaps even instructions that you would like to off er your family to help prepare them for the future?

• In creating this permanent record, are there other things that you would like included?

Dignity Therapy gives patients the opportunity to leave behind a spoken legacy of their life reflections and hopes for the next generations.I want to congratulate the researchers of the recent Dignity Therapy study published in the Lancet Oncology. The study demonstrates the value of recording a spoken legacy of an individual’s life reflections and hopes for the next generations to pass on to loved ones before death. It’s not easy to place a quantitative value on dignity.

Researchers conclude “based on the findings of this study, clinicians should consider dignity therapy a viable therapeutic approach, which can enhance end-of-life experience for patients and families confronting death.”
The novel psychotherapy entailed audio recording interviews with patients facing six months or less of live. The interviewers stimulated patients to share life recollections and lessons that the patient would like his or her family to remember and hopes and wishes for loved ones the patient would have to leave behind. The recorded interview is transcribed into a generitivity document for the patient to give family members.

Donna Miller, founder of the Life Review Video program at Hospice Care of the West, video records the life review interview of a patient.This study helps us to understand the value in the life review videos, the brainchild of Donna Miller, director of volunteer services for Hospice Care of the West. For the past five years, I’ve been following Donna video record life review interviews with hospice patients. The interview is then edited with photos and music into life review video that the patient can leave behind for his family. I knew the value of what Donna was giving to patients because I video and audio recorded a series of interviews with my mother reflecting on her life in the months leading up to her death. As I write about in my book, Parting Ways: New Rituals and Celebrations of Life’s Passing, my mother exemplified a picture of dignity in motion in the last months, days and hours of her life. I also shadow Donna and another life review guides in the book to report patients improved sense of dignity because of their life stories are recorded to share with their families and communities.
In my book research, I also interviewed the Harvey Max Chochinov, the principal investigator on phase one of the Dignity Therapy study. He explained to me something I often share with families approaching end of life. One of the biggest assaults on our dignity at the end of life is that nothing of who or what I am will live on after I die.
Dignity Therapy focuses on generativity that researchers describe as “the ability to guide the next generation, encompassing how patients might find strength or comfort in knowing that they will leave behind something lasting and transcendent after death.”

Harvey Max Chonchinov, lead researcher on Dignity Therapy, discovered that the biggest assault on one’s dignity is that nothing of who or what I am will live on after I die.The randomized study researched 326 patients with a life expectancy of six months or less, receiving palliative care in a hospital or community setting in Canada, the United States and Australia. The other two models of care in the study included testing 111 patients assigned standard palliative care and 107 in client-centered care that focuses on issues of here and now i.e. the psychological distress of the illness but not generativity. There were 108 patients assigned Dignity Therapy. This second phase of the study is a herculean effort in establishing a randomized study of comparative patient experiences across three different methods of end of life care. Chochinov and his researchers concluded that Dignity Therapy provided an enhanced sense of purpose, continued sense of self, and overall sense of dignity.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s difficult to place a value on dignity but the researchers assess that “the therapeutic effect was often ‘profound and poignant’ on those who received Dignity Therapy over those in the study who did not.”
In a couple of examples reported in the study, a 72-year-old woman with bowel cancer stated that “[Dignity Therapy] brought to the forefront that I have to prepare my family to the best of my ability.”
Another 56-year-old woman said: “Mostly, I want

my family to know that I’m okay with dying and they must move on. The therapy showed me that I am not the cancer, I am still in here. I am so grateful for that because I lost myself….It really helped me remember who I am.”
In the first phase of the Dignity Therapy in 2005, Chochinov and his researchers reported significant results in the 100 terminally ill patients who participated:
91% were satisfied with Dignity Therapy
76% reported a heightened sense of dignity
68% an increased sense of purpose
67% a heightened sense of meaning
47% an increased will to live
81% that Dignity Therapy had been or would be of help to their family
Evaluations post-interview with family members reported:
78% reported Dignity Therapy enhanced the patient’s dignity
72% reported Dignity Therapy heightened the meaning of life for the patient
78% said the generitivity document from the therapy session was a comfort to them in their time of grief
95% said they would recommend Dignity Therapy to other patients and their families.
These Dignity Therapy studies illuminate the benefits of spoken legacies and life review videos for both the patients and their families. Below are the questions used in the study.
Tell me a little about your life history, particularly the parts that you either remember most or think are the most important? When did you feel most alive?
Are there specific things that you would want your family to know about you, and are there particular things you would want them to remember?
What are the most important roles you have had in life (eg, family roles, vocational roles, community-service roles)? Why were they so important to you and what do you think you accomplished in those roles?
What are your most important accomplishments, and what do you feel most proud of?
Are there particular things that you feel still need to be said to your loved ones or things that you would want to take the time to say once again?
What are your hopes and dreams for your loved ones?
What have you learned about life that you would want to pass along to others? What advice or words of guidance would you wish to pass along to your son, daughter, husband, wife, parents, or other(s)?
Are there words or perhaps even instructions that you would like to off er your family to help prepare them for the future?
In creating this permanent record, are there other things that you would like included?

The post Dignity Therapy values leaving your spoken legacy to loved ones appeared first on Our Life Celebrations.