A Good Dying Blog

When I was 9 years old and my sister 7, my mother and father divorced. It was a tragic experience for my sister and I, and we only barely talk about it

By Kurt Streeter, Los Angeles Times: Amid ill and dying inmates, a search for redemption

Tending to the men in a prison hospice helped John Paul Madrona do penance for a terrible deed in his youth. But perhaps the work was not enough.

The two men walked slowly through the steel-framed door, the older one leading the younger. The door slammed shut behind them.

"Don't worry," said the older man, John Paul Madrona. "It's true people die here, but we help them."

They passed a row of rooms filled with men in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Most had committed horrendous crimes and would spend their final days in this small wing of the California Medical Facility, a high-security prison at the base of rolling hills near Sacramento. The facility housed roughly 3,000 criminals: some in good health, some ill, some dying.

Gary Weckselblatt: Dying woman gets her wish

Beth Coulter still hasn’t heard from the Bucks County Housing Authority, which controls the Section 8 Richlandtown apartment she has lived in for 14 years.

But the 50-year-old woman, given about six months to live because of brain cancer, was told by a reporter Tuesday that her request to have a friend move in and provide hospice care to her has been approved.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Coulter, who used this newspaper and Facebook to get her story out to the public that BCHA had denied her permission to have her friend Pam Koo move into her two-bedroom apartment. “I couldn’t be happier.”

Suddenly Gone A goodbye only in dreams

My 18 year old youngest daughter, Alana, was bouncy, sweet, beautiful. Just becoming a young woman. Happily looking foward to life after high school.

Mr. Skip's Blog: How Facebook Changed the End of Mom's Life

A year ago last August my mother was diagnosed with matasticized breast cancer and was told that we were treating not curing.

To say that is a devastating thing for anyone to hear is an understatement. But we all rallied around the person who had given so much of herself to raise us three kids.

My brother, who lives in Oregon, suggested a book. A book comprised of messages to her, relayed through us, from those people on whose lives mom had made an impact. Me, being a self-proclaimed techie with delusions of grandeur, suggested a group on Facebook since I had reconnected there with many people from my earlier life in New Canaan.

So we created "Messages to Peg", an invitation only Facebook Group and populated it with everyone we could think of who had known mom.

Gramma

Life is a beautiful thing. My grandmother is the most greatest person ever. She brought joy to all the family. She brought us all together in times of

Seeing the Light Of Death

Our father Bill has been gone since February 27, 1999 and I still can recall this day like it was today. I am one of four loving daughters who with

Mija

Yesterday I put my best friend of 14 years to sleep. Mija found me when I was walking home one cold November and stole my heart. She wasn't like any

Goodbye Mom

She was diagnose with liver cancer. We were in and out of the hospital for three years. On her last six months the hospital was our second home. We knew

My Mom's Journey

My mom collapsed as she was getting dressed for work on October 12, 2009... My dad immediately called 911. Mom was in and out of consciousness. Minutes

Mia

We only had Mia for a year but we loved her so much. We saved her from her last owner who claimed she couldn't keep her anymore. Mia was nine years old

Great Britain: GPs and nurses launch charter for end of life care

The Charter for End of Life Care aims to ensure patients' remaining days are as comfortable as possible.

It includes calls for healthcare teams to do all they can to preserve patients' independence, dignity and sense of personal control.

The document, created by the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nursing, will be sent to 8,500 GP practices in England.

My mom, my best friend

I was 19 during these events. I was the typical teenage boy, busy with college, work, and life. My mom and I had the best relationship. We were best friends

Matt Volz: World's oldest man dies in Montana at 114

— Embrace change, even when the change slaps you in the face. ("Every change is good.")

Then there's the hardest part. It's a lesson Breuning said he learned from his grandfather: Accept death.

"We're going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you're born to die," he said.

Emily Yoffe: My Husband's Other Wife - She died, so I could find the man I love.

Shortly after my husband John and I were married, on a day he was at work and I was home moving my things into his house, I opened a cardboard box in the attic. It was filled with photos of his other married life, the one he'd had with his first wife, Robin Goldstein.

She was 28 when they got married, and six months later she was diagnosed with breast cancer. My husband was nursing her at home when she died just after her 34th birthday.

The box contained wedding photos, honeymoon photos, and random snapshots of parties and birthdays. As I excavated, I could chart her illness by her hair—a cycle of dark waves, then wigs and scarves.

After I'd looked at them all I closed the box and cried for her, and for my guilty awareness that her death allowed me, five years later, to marry the man I loved.

Matt Smith: Dan's House of Hope is Answer to Teen's Dying Wish

It started with the dying wish from an Appleton teenager to find community during a lonely diagnosis.

Three years of chemo and radiation, 18 surgeries, 90 infusions, and Dan Kenneavy's wish just before Christmas 2009 became his last.

Diagnosed the week before his senior photos, the 17-year-old from Appleton knew the osteosarcoma that would eventually remove nine inches of bone from his upper arm would be no easy fight.

Mary Ann Thomas: Springdale filmmakers tell story of dying friend in screening of "Micah"

A teenage girl who died from cancer inspired the short film "Micah." The two area filmmakers who created the film will offer a free public screening May 17 at South Pike Cinemas in Buffalo Township....

"Micah" is the story of a boy with a terminal illness who is befriended by a film director who gives the boy an 8-mm camera. Micah films his world as he copes with that illness.

Last night I dreamed a dream within a dream

My body was dying. It was clear death was imminent. I was faced with the horrifying vulnerability of not being ready. Who could take my place with my children.

Recent Celebrity Deaths

Recent celebrity deaths offer a chance to collectively feel and express grief and share our sense of loss, and publicly explore feelings around death and dying.

My 100th webpage...

I have been thinking for months to create a page on celebrity deaths, as I see them as one of the few ways that death and dying is publicly acknowledged in our Western culture. Go and check it out....

Hana Baba: The Art of Dying Well

Dealing with death can be emotionally draining, but one man says we shouldn't fear the experience. Instead, it should be embraced as a natural part of life.

Dale Borglum is founder the Living/Dying Project. His organization helps people deal with death, gain a sense of spirituality, live fully, and prepare to die, as he puts it, a "conscious death." KALW's Hana Baba sat down with Borglum and asked him what that means.

A Prayer for Those Returning to the Eternal Mother

Let (his/her) body return and become one with the dirt that has born our ancestors so it's remains may bear new fruit for the living to consume Let

Ali

At the age of sixteen, i was supposed to travel to London to further my studies. But because i got in a lot of trouble that year, my father decided to

my mum and dad

I lost my mum in 2003 and my dad in 2004. I wasn't with my mum when she died but I held my dad. It is only now, seven years later, that I am dealing

Letters to God

Letters to God while on my journey... and the gift of my love for my family, and all the blessings he has given to me. Carry on, my darlings, and know

Four Legs, One special friend

Four Legs, One Special Friend - January 18, 2011 Father, I come to you tonight with praise and tears, as our dear Buddy, our sweet, old friend is close

He closed his eyes, and didn't wake up!

His name was Daniel Gerald Thomas. He died before his 26th birthday, while in bed next to me! Everyone who knew Daniel, knew that here was a genuine person

Michael Heaton: Everyone is dying to find out if 'Heaven is Real'

The monologist Spalding Gray once said, "Everybody knows they are going to die, but no one really believes it."

Vinnie Rotondaro: Funeral Divas - How women are returning to the death care industry in droves

In October 2010, Muneerah Warner founded Funeral Divas Inc., a social group for women in the death care industry. At the Divas' website black and pink coffin mugs, hoodies, and umbrellas can be bought, and members can enroll in a funeral director mentorship program.

According to the site, the group's mission is "to encourage and uplift every woman in the funeral service industry and have fun at the same time!" So far 300 women have joined. This July many of them will be meeting in Laguna Beach, Calif., for the Funeral Divas' first-ever retreat.

Todd Burpo: ‘Heaven Is for Real’: One boy’s astonishing account

A small child, brought to the brink of death, describes his experience in the afterlife.

When pastor Todd Burpo and his wife, Sonja, asked their 4-year-old son Colton a simple question, they never expected his extraordinary response: Colton recounted an experience that reinforced their faith forever.

Still missing Vicki

I lost my friend Vicki Egan almost two years ago and it still seems like yesterday. Vicki was so full of life and seemed like her internal battery just

Dean Goodman: A Minute With: Lucinda Williams tackles aging, death

Age is more than a number to Lucinda Williams. It's also a song lyric.The singer/songwriter confronts the sensitive subject in one of the first songs on her new album "Blessed."

In a lament to her late manager, she reveals her shock at hearing of his death. "I'm 57 but I could be seven years old," she sings in "Copenhagen."

Not many entertainers of a certain age, especially female rockers in an industry powered by fresh-faced sensations such as 17 year-old Justin Bieber, are so willing to acknowledge the passage of time.

Coaching by Ulla Mentzel, M.A.

If you or a loved one are getting close to death and would like some coaching support on that journey, this is the place to find out all the details.

Fullness No Matter What: Juicy Living From The Inside Out

Fullness is when our cup runneth over and we give back where inspiration guides us, passion points us, and help is needed.

Jenna Ross: A teacher of life's lessons: Dying included

Metro State University Prof. Monte Bute is bringing his battle with cancer into class -- and learning a thing or two himself and about the impact of one person's life on others.

Stages of Dying ( My Mom)

This is still fresh in my mind and I want to share what I saw during the stages of my moms dying. My mom had stage 4 lymphoma and stage 4 lung cancer.

Finding and Losing

After years of mistakes, regrets, bitterness--met and completed connected with my Other--within one week find out they are dying soon. Feel such great

Mom died and I went to hell

My mother was diagnosed in the summer of 2007 with Congestive Heart Failure caused by a thyroid storm due to untreated hyperthyroidism. After being hospitalized

Michelle Dupler: KGH oncologist compiles lessons on dying

Dr. Stephen Iacoboni, an oncologist at Kennewick General Hospital, believes Americans have become a culture that's disconnected from death and dying -- so much so that many people no longer know how to cope with the reality that their lives will end.

"We don't see people dying," he said. "People who die in wars die on foreign soil. People die in hospitals and in nursing homes. They don't die in our homes."

First grade teaching on birth and being with God.

Living and Leaving From a Christian Book for six year olds in the 1940's: Why did God make me? God made me to

Dr. Atul Gawande: Return of the "Death Panel" Myth is a "Travesty"

As Republicans take control of the House today, GOP leaders say they will immediately try to repeal President Obama’s signature healthcare law. Even before the repeal vote takes place, Republicans can lay claim to a key victory in the healthcare battle. This week the Obama administration said it would reverse a regulation that would have covered end-of-life planning for Medicare beneficiaries during their annual checkups after Republicans revived the specter of so-called "death panels."

We spend the hour with one of the most influential health policy writers in the country, renowned surgeon and author Dr. Atul Gawande. [includes rush transcript]

Paul Vitello: Reviving a Ritual of Tending to the Dead

The volunteers are taught to begin at the head, washing the face before proceeding to the neck and right shoulder. The right side is to be washed before the left side, the front before the back. There are prayers to say. Small talk is forbidden.

The Jewish protocol for tending to the dead governs almost every interaction between the living and the deceased from the moment of death until burial. The ritual, which has been part of religious law for two millenniums, mandates the protection of the physical and spiritual remains.

William E. Lewis Jr.: Death and social networks

Aware of the "memorial" policies of Facebook, I was prompted to investigate the various social networking policies on deceased users' accounts and what can be done to preserve, memorialize or delete them following death.

Bill Kaufmann: Caring for the dying strengthens life: study

That's the verdict of University of Calgary research on hospice and palliative care workers published published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Researcher Shane Sinclair said the study of 30 such workers over a year in 2006-07 in five Canadian cities shows overseeing the end of life is a consistently enriching experience.

New Address

Please do not mourn for me when I have passed, for I have merely changed my address.

Josh Clark: Struggling to Define Death

We've reached this weird point in human history where we've created technology that has leapfrogged over our traditional methods of distinguishing life, like looking for signs of respiration and feeling for a pulse. We cannot be sure whether those signals are life and are helpless to do anything but observe them. But we can sustain them, and it is in this ability that we reach our current conundrum: We have no idea when death occurs.

Robert Lanza, M.D.: What Happens When You Die? Evidence Suggests Time Simply Reboots

What happens when we die? Do we rot into the ground, or do we go to heaven (or hell, if we've been bad)? Experiments suggest the answer is simpler than anyone thought. Without the glue of consciousness, time essentially reboots.

Living

Once upon a time there was a family: a mother, a father, and two heartbreakingly beautiful little girls. And once upon a time, there was an icy road, and

Bonnie McEneaney: The Spiritual Connection within 9/11

With all the controversy going on at Ground Zero related to the Mosque debate, it's easy to lose sight of the positive impact spirituality has had on many 9/11 families grieving for loved ones. The experiences are chronicled in my book, "MESSAGES: Signs, Visits and Premonitions from Loved Ones Lost on 9/11."

As a former skeptic who has been transformed into a believer, it's my hope that the spiritual stories surrounding 9/11 will help convince people that love is still the eternal message and that we can all experience faith, hope, and love no matter how tragic the circumstances. I firmly believe that we should take a break from hate and controversy and respect the anniversary of September 11th as a day in which we honor the memory of the victims--our fallen heroes--with love and remembrance.

In loving and celebrating our letting go into death’s arms
We are graced with being birthed breathtakingly into more living
~~~~~
I give permission to copy and redistribute this content as long as full credit is given and it is distributed freely. © 2011 A-Good-Dying.com
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