Grief, Gratitude, and the Holiday Blues
Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, Easter and Passover. Holidays are associated with laughter and fun, celebration as well as reflection, times to spend with family and dear friends.  For many of us they’re also associated with sorrow, grief, loneliness and stress.  Add the death of a dear friend or family member to the mix and holidays can be harrowing.

Grief is a response to the love that existed and still exists between us and those who have gone on before us.  Grief and love go hand in hand. Why pretend we’re not sad?  Why pretend we don’t miss them?

When someone special dies our world might seem to crumble, and the demands of the holiday can heighten our sorrow. Celebrating when a loved one has died can feel like betrayal; as if enjoying life without them means we’ve forgotten them. But we haven’t. We can mix our grief with gratitude for those who’ve been in our lives and be reminded that life continues to offer goodness and blessings.
What can we do? How can we celebrate the holidays when we’re missing our loved one?
Consider these ideas. Then pick some things to do that seem authentic to you and your family –

Laugh when it’s time to laugh. Cry when tears are needed
Talk about them and the times you shared.
Make their favorite food. Their favorite food is sometimes banished from the holiday meal. Instead, eat it and enjoy it! Or laugh over the fact that it’s the one food you never did like very much.
Light a candle, say their name or say a prayer for them
Try continuing their favorite holiday activity
Dedicate a decoration on the Christmas tree in their honor
Decorate their grave site
If you scattered them to the winds, or a river […]

-By Rose Gordon, Hospice Spiritual Care Counselor & Volunteer Coordinator.

I was delighted to volunteer at Ganga Prem Hospice (GPH) in November and December 2017 and engage in providing the services they offer to patients in the cities of Rishikesh, Deradhun and Haridwar. In Northern India.

Ganga Prem is an inter-faith hospice that holds a free clinic every month, attended by up to 100 people who receive diagnosis, medications, wound care, counseling and other services they are unable to get elsewhere. Many, if not most, of the people are found to have cancer. If their condition calls for it they are, with their agreement, driven to the GPH in-patient hospice facility, located in the countryside.

It’s about a 45 minute drive from the main marketplace in Rishikesh to the hospice, along a busy highway and then on a dirt road through the jungle, which reportedly has both tigers and elephants, though I saw only large deer. Once through the jungle, the dirt road opens to an area of lush green fields, planted with grain, leafy green vegetables and squash. On both sides of the road are the simple homes of the local residents. Flat roofs hold the most recent harvest, left there to dry in the sun. Herbs and other vegetables hang from the porches. There are many thatched roof buildings for livestock and just behind the hospice is a large grove of guava trees, tended by women and children whose time is spent chasing birds away from the ripening fruit.

The three storied hospice itself was entirely built by donations. Each patient’s room has its own bathroom and small balcony and the area around the hospice is filling with flowers, shrubs and  a vegetable garden. Large balconies circle the hospice, so that patients can sit in the fresh air and sunlight. The […]

Meet Ruth Cordova, one of our most beloved staff members.
Ruth has been a CNA, or Home Health Aide, with Mountain Home Health Care for the last eight years. The care that Ruth performs for our clients is very important to her. While bathing clients, she checks for bruising, sores, and rashes, to make sure they are comfortable and safe. Her favorite part of working with MHHC are the many different kinds of people she gets to work with and learn from. […]

Team Member Spotlight:
Meet Yvette Trujillo our Community Outreach Coordinator.
Yvette works within the community to raise awareness of the services Mountain Home Health Care provides through education workshops and fundraising events. She also works with our grant writing teams and is coordinating our upcoming Job Fair on January 25th.

As a long-time Taoseño, Yvette really appreciates “the beauty of our mountains, lakes and rivers and most of all the night skies that light up with all those stars.” In her free time, Yvette likes to bake and cook, trying out new recipes. She also stays fit going to the gym, dancing to good music at live shows, and working in her yard.

We hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving yesterday!! Today’s post comes from an NPR story featured today about the importance of talking to your elderly loved ones while they’re here for the Holidays about planning for the future.

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Two years ago my mom fell at home and ended up being admitted to the ICU with four broken ribs and internal injuries. She was lucky. After two weeks in the hospital and a few more in a rehab unit she was back home, using her new blue walker to get around.

I think of that each Thanksgiving as I make pies just the way she taught me, grateful that she’s still with us and that she’s told us how she wants to die

Before she was discharged, Mom signed a POLST form, short for a Physician Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment. I’d heard of advance directives, which spell out the kind of medical care a person would want if they become too ill to communicate those wishes. But I’d never heard of POLST.

In Oregon, where my mother lives, it’s a one-page piece of pink paper that bluntly asks if you want to have CPR performed if your heart stops and you’re not breathing. Three other check boxes ask how much medical intervention you want: going to the hospital and an intensive care unit; perhaps the hospital but no ICU; or skip the hospital altogether. A third question asks if you want to be fed through a tube. That’s it.

Because it’s signed by a doctor or other provider, a POLST has teeth. It overrides the legal obligation of an EMT or a hospital to provide CPR and other emergency care that for old and sick people can lead to a long, miserable hospital stay.

“It’s not for healthy people,” says Dr. Susan Tolle, director […]