Does anyone personally know Michelle Knox? Because we’d like to be friends with her. We have much to talk about. Listening to this story about her on NPR, we had a classic NPR “driveway moment.” We laughed out loud along with a little bit of car-crying. We wanted to know more. It turns out that Michelle works in finance in Sydney, Australia. She is a traveler and blogger who lost her father in 2017. Her personal experience in grief and dying motivated her to research how others talk about and prepare for death. She found that it’d be a lot easier to live if we talked about death now while we a ..read more

There are many moments where we are hit with the overwhelming absence of our sister, Colleen. This summer was full of new experiences and big events but, still, the recurring pangs of her absence. It just keeps happening, you guys! In the past several months, we have cried in front of a large audience (more than once) and spoken our truth about our sister dying to strangers and friends alike. We cried during our presentation about sibling caregivers, which we knew was a strong possibility but still took us by surprise. We thought that we could be like robots and simply share our refl ..read more

Caregiving has been on our minds lately. A recent article on caregiving and new efforts to provide respite, training, and other help to caregivers gives us hope. It provides examples of caregiving training methods, such as in-home coaches, and explains the need to support family caregivers. We related to this quote from a provider and caregiver: “‘I'm a physician, and when I take care of my mom, I have an endless loop in my head,’ of the to-do list.” We recently attended a symposium focused on family-centered care through the end of life sponsored by Henry Ford Health System . We spoke at the ..read more

The past few weeks - indeed every January and early February - are some of the most difficult for our family. Just as we begin to recover from the holidays, we are hit with Colleen’s birthday and a few weeks later, the anniversary of her death. Her “death-iversary” is a significant but somber day that we want to recognize, but one that seems weird to “celebrate.” We don’t always know how to react, what to share, what to do. This annual marker coincides with cold weather and post-new year's pledges. We find ourselves with pent-up energy, organizing drawers and closets in a b ..read more

Another article about hospice, and again we find ourselves nodding along in agreement. This recent opinion piece in the New York Times rang true. “At the end of life, things can fall apart quickly, and neither medical specialist nor hospice worker can guarantee a painless exit. But we were told a palliative expert would be at my father’s bedside if he needed it. We were not told this was conditional on staffing levels.” — Karen Brown The author, Karen Brown, shares her family’s in-home hospice experience and their best efforts to care for her father who was dying of pancreatic cancer. It is a ..read more

November is National Family Caregivers Month and we wanted to take time to recognize all family caregivers. Last year, we were celebrating them, too.  Caregiver Action Network announced the theme “Caregiving around the clock” and has some good tips and resources. While the stress of caregiving can often be overwhelming, we wanted to learn about how other caregivers ask for more help or delegate. We asked former and current caregivers if they asked for help and how they looked for resources. Of those that we asked, most reported that they asked for some kind of help or searched for re ..read more

We have talked about how the fall season triggers our grief before. We still consider it a wonderful season, but moments of sadness and anger slip in. We feel two-faced in our relationship with fall. It’s great and terrible. Nothing makes us happier than walking into Trader Joe's and finding that the pumpkin Danish Kringle has arrived! We love fall weather, fall colors, fall decorations. But we also get angry thinking about how our sister got so sick during this beautiful time. And so now the old anger phase is flaring up again… knowing that our sister comes up in conversation less and l ..read more

Photo credit: Melissa Kroll Photography  www.melissakrollphotography.com We discovered this informative article by Joanne Kenen in Politico thanks to a tweet from Zen Hospice Project, an amazing hospice care provider in the San Francisco Bay Area. The article recognizes both the importance of home hospice and its challenges. The main point that the article addresses is the fact that dying, family structure, and illnesses have changed over the decades, making the traditional model of hospice out of sync. It is a worthwhile read. The article explains that hospice pushes back against the ov ..read more

We recently read several interesting articles and research about caregiving. For any of our young adult readers who are actively involved in a caregiving role right now, we are cheering you on and personally understand how tough of a job you have. You are among an estimated 19 million young adult caregivers as of 2015 and have been identified as an under-served population, as we’ve reported before. Sometimes our stressful period of caregiving seems long ago, but we can be taken right back to that moment by reading about others’ experiences. And we are fortunate to even have the chance now to r ..read more

As we’ve posted about before, we have a special interest in books about dying, books about grieving, and other such uplifting topics! Actually, we truly admire those that can write about such heavy topics in an honest and even humorous way. Here is a short review of what we’ve been reading lately. Post in the comments section or email us if you’ve read any great books this summer! Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant Sheryl Sandberg shares her tragic story of losing her husband unexpectedly, leaving her a single parent to the ..read more