Mastodon Pallimed Roundup: #Endwell17 Attendees and Speakers Reflect on Personal Meaning of Ending Well ~ Pallimed

Friday, December 15, 2017

Pallimed Roundup: #Endwell17 Attendees and Speakers Reflect on Personal Meaning of Ending Well

Curated by Lizzy Miles

Last week, I attended the End Well Symposium in San Francisco. (You could read my review here). Collectively, we were examining how we can improve the end of life experience for all. It occurred to me as we talked about individual desire and diversity that the attendees might have unique expectations and hopes for their own personal ending. So I asked around. You'll note some trends, but also some very unique answers.

What would it mean for you personally to “end well?”

“Being present to the experience. I don’t want to control it, I just want to know.”
-Karen Van Dyke
Senior Care by Design

“To experience the process of dying and to be aware for as long as I can without pain.”
-Heidi Burbage
San Francisco Health Network

“I feel complete in my life. I’m just starting to do my work. I would love to have what my mom had – a Living Wake. Be surrounded by loved ones at Zen Hospice. Have the song We are the World or something by Barry Manilow playing.”
-Laura Sweet
The Cancer Journey

“I am going to be buried in a green burial ground with a mushroom suit and three days vigil prior to the burial.”
Michele Little
Beautifuldying.com

“Having made all my relationships healthy and felt like I gave back to the world as much as I took from it. I would want to be in the company of the people I know and love and not in institutional setting being cared for by strangers.  I would love to hear the sound of wind and trees."
-Jennifer Brokaw, MD
Patient advocate, writer, speaker

“A conscious death with close family. Preferably when I’m over 65, even better with adult grandchildren.”
-Jethro Heiko
Co-founder of Common Practice

“A car accident where I’m pulverized.”
Sandra Price
Estate Planning Attorney
[editor’s note – yes, she understood the question!]


“I’m outside. It’s a sunny day but not hot. My entire family is there having a barbeque. There is loud, rowdy music playing. Then I slip away. I want to be fully conscious until the end.”
-Linda Siniard
ABD PhD in Transformative Studies

“My ability to welcome everything and push away nothing where my dying could be of use to others. It would be as simple as possible, ideally with the giggling of my granddaughter as my final sound.”
-Frank Ostaseski
Metta Institute

“Feeling like my relationships are in order and I’ve expressed gratitude and love to everyone in my life. I’m at peace with people and the physical place. I’m at home in my own environment and if I can’t be at home then with elements of my home. The most important thing is to feel prepared spiritually. Even if my death is unexpected and traumatic, I hope to touch that peaceful place within myself.”
-Vanessa Callison-Burch
Chaplaincy student at Upaya Zen Center

“I don’t want to die. I’m going to live in the cloud forever.”
-Andrew MacPherson
Principal at Healthsperien, LLC

“The sound of a friend of mine playing charango. The sensation of my son on one side, my daughter on another and my wife rubbing my head. Lots of laughter and crying equally balanced. We’re outside in my redwood forest.”
-Michael Fratkin, MD
ResolutionCare

“My having a good death means my identity is preserved in the way I see myself and how I want the world to see me.”
-Charlie Blotner
MSW student, University of Washington

“Close to zen-like at home surrounded by water and nature and family and friends. If I had to give up quantity to have high quality, I would happily trade months.”
-Bob Tedeschi
Stat News Journalist

“I’d like to go while I was outside on the Ko’olau Mountains. There is a place called Stairway to Heaven. If somebody could leave me out there, I’d be good. The pigs will take care of me.”
-Billy Greineisen
Director of Strategy, Cox Enterprises

“The number one thing for me to end well would be for my son to be proud of me and to feel like he felt incredibly unconditionally loved. I highly value environment. I would be at home in my lovely, warm bedroom looking out my window and it would be raining. I would be with my family and I would be happy.”
-Danny Kraus
Partner, Wellhaus Media

“I would like to live whatever length the boss has for me and go quickly. I’d like to be at home and have my two boys telling jokes so I can hear them.”
-Anil Sethi
Founder, Ciitizen

“I will be excited to release into the oneness, the emptiness of the universe.”
Michael Kersten
Hill Physician Medical Group

“It would be a shared experience between me, my caregivers and my clinical team where we would make the best decision based on my goals and values and also side effects and tradeoffs of the treatments that are available.”
-Torrie Fields
Senior Program Manager, Blue Shield of California

Lizzy Miles, MA, MSW, LSW is a hospice social worker in Columbus, Ohio and a regular contributor to Pallimed. She is the author of a book of happy hospice stories: Somewhere In Between: The Hokey Pokey, Chocolate Cake and the Shared Death Experience. Lizzy is best known for bringing the Death Cafe concept to the United States. You can find her on Twitter @LizzyMiles_MSW.


Photo credits:
mushroom - Igor Yemelianov
Barbeque - Andrik Langfield
Trees - Arnaud Mesureur
Stairway to Heaven - Shawn Clover

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