Pamela Yip, Personal Finance reporter for the Dallas Morning News, remains one of my favorite reporters. I feel a kinship to her style of reporting which is accessible, practical, and relevant to everyday life. Last week she wrote an excellent article about how difficult it is to contest a will. Here is what you need [...]
Today is the second anniversary of my mother’s death. It is not a day of mourning so much as a day of reflection. CELEBRATING A LIFE I miss my mother every day. She wasn’t the greatest mother in her child rearing years; yet, over time, she learned how to love and respect herself and give [...]
DYING WITH ADVANCED DEMENTIA Last week I attended a conference at UT Southwestern Medical Center on End of Life Issues for Alzheimer’s Patients“. A presentation by Janice A. Knebl, DO, MBA, FACP, FACOI, DSWOP, that focused on artificial feeding made me aware of how important it is for medical professionals s well as civilians to [...]
OSCAR! OSCAR! Last week I saw the Oscar-nominated movie, The Descendents. I hope it wins because more people will go to see it. It is a realistic and understanding portrayal of what a family goes through during and after the death of a family member. The thing I love about it is that it captures [...]
In his January 16, 2012, TIME article, Over My Dead Body, Joel Stein shares his various and unrelated thoughts about funerals, which got me meditating on my own ideas about funerals. In my end-of-life planning my funeral is literally an afterthought (joke). It is profoundly important to some. FUNERAL MUSIC The first time I gave [...]
Assisted suicide is a tremendously complex issue. Public debate centers on legal, religious, and moral conceptions of “suicide” and “personal right to death”. DEFINITION OF ASSISTED SUICIDE Wikipedia defines “Assisted Suicide” as follows: The common term for actions by which an individual helps another person voluntarily bring about his or her own death. “Assistance” may [...]
I hope that if I experience hospice for myself, that my caregivers bring in furry friends. The older I get, the more I cherish the unconditional and generous love of animals. They make my world richer today. I hope they are near to say goodbye when I leave this earth. This lovely video captures the [...]
Hospice care is a philosophy. It is not a place. Care is provided by a team of physicians, nurses, clergy, social workers, volunteers, and therapists, and it is covered by Medicare. Hospice provides comfort and support to anyone facing a terminal illness. The patient and his or her family are treated as a unit. After [...]
Preparing essential documents is an adult responsibility that should begin well before old age. Most people think it is something they should get around to “before I die”. Let’s be realistic. None of us know just when we will get there. Most people cannot bring themselves to get their documents organized. This is understandable since [...]
“Rest in Peace” is a phrase often seen or heard when someone admired or loved has passed on. Frontier settlers would carve R.I.P. into a flat stone that would serve as a short epitaph on a grave marker before continuing their journey across the plains, or at least that’s what they do in movies. “REST [...]
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