RECOMMENDED READING RESOURCES
Our team at Dignity Hospice recognizes that you and your loved ones are experiencing something difficult and life-changing. You may be uncertain of the road ahead. You may be feeling scared. Or angry. We understand and validate those emotions – they are a completely normal part of grieving. To help you navigate this difficult journey, we have put together a brief overview of some wonderful books and information. These books are made to be a resource for you, whether you are the patient, family, or caregiver.
My Friend, I Care.
A booklet intended for the newly grieving. It addresses the normalcy of grieving and stages of grief while offering suggestions for moving forward into living. The grieving process is as foreign to us as death. The experience is forced upon us by life situations that have been beyond our control. We become angry, depressed, fearful, and anxious. We do not know that all these feelings together represent grief. My Friend, I Care offers simple explanations for the thoughts and feelings generated by grief.
The Eleventh Hour.
The hours to minutes before imminent death are generally filled with fear and helplessness for anyone at the bedside. Fear because we have inaccurate role models from movies and TV and helplessness because there is no “fixing” death. This brings the question, “What do we do?” “The Eleventh Hour” is a booklet that offers information, ideas and support on how to care for a person in the hours to minutes before death and just after. “The Eleventh Hour” is a guiding resource. Most of all, it is for families faced with caring for their loved one in the hours of approaching death.
The Memory Box
From the perspective of a child, Joanna Rowland artfully describes what it is like to remember and grieve a loved one who has died. The child in the story creates a memory box to keep mementos and written memories of the loved one, to help in the grieving process. Heartfelt and comforting, The Memory Box will help children and adults talk about this difficult topic together. The point of view allows the reader to imagine the loss of any they have loved – a friend, family member, even a pet.
What’s Happening To Grandpa?
Kate has always adored her grandpa’s storytelling – but lately he’s been repeating the same stories again and again. One day, he even forgets Kate’s name. Her mother’s patient explanations open Kate’s eyes to what so many of the elderly must confront: Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of memory loss. Determined to support her grandfather, Kate explores ways to help him – and herself – cope by creating a photo album of their times together, memories that will remain in their hearts forever.
Gone From My Sight
The biggest fear of watching someone die is fear of the unknown; not knowing what dying will be like or when death will occur. The booklet “Gone From My Sight” explains the process of dying from disease in a simple, gentle yet direct manner. Dying from disease is not like it is portrayed in the movies. People die in stages of months, weeks, days, and hours. “Gone From My Sight” is literature used to reduce fear and uncertainty; and to neutralize the fear associated with dying. It is designed to help people understand dying.
End Of Life Series
The End of Life Guideline Series is a compilation of Barbara Karnes’ five books on the end of life. When you or someone you know is faced with having a disease that may not be treatable, life changes instantly. At such a time people enter a phase of life for which they often have no preparation. End of Life Guideline Series informs people on how to live with a life-threatening illness, what to expect when someone is dying, what to do to help, managing pain, how to address the fear of death and dying, and how to grieve.
Pain At The End Of Life
There is much fear and misconception surrounding pain management at end of life. Pain at End of Life addresses, in fifth grade, non-medical terminology: pain as it relates to the dying process, fear of overdosing, and addiction. This booklet is intended for families in the time imminent to death, for education of hospital and nursing facility staff, as well as anyone interested in, or dealing with, narcotics and pain management as end of life approaches.
Someone I Love Died
It gently leads children through grief with age-appropriate words and solid biblical truth that understands a child’s hurting heart. The added interactive resources ensure this book will become a treasured keepsake. Once complete, children create a memory book of the loved one’s life. And it offers grown-ups a tool that turns what could be a difficult season into a meaningful time of healing.
Weeds In Nana’s Garden
A young girl and her Nana hold a special bond that blooms in the surroundings of Nana’s magical garden.Then one day, the girl finds many weeds in the garden. She soon discovers that her beloved Nana has Alzheimer’s Disease; an illness that affects an adult brain with tangles that get in the way of thoughts, kind of like how weeds get in the way of flowers.As time passes, the weeds grow thicker and her Nana declines, but the girl accepts the difficult changes with love.
Dying Well
Dying Well brings us to the homes and bedsides of families with whom Dr. Byock has worked, telling stories of love and reconciliation in the face of tragedy, pain, medical drama, and conflict. Through the true stories of patients, he shows us that a lot of emotional work can be accomplished in the final months, weeks, and days of life. It is written for families to show them how to deal with doctors, how to talk to loved ones and how to make the end of life as meaningful and enriching as the beginning.
RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN
Our team at Dignity Hospice recognizes that you and your loved ones are experiencing something difficult and life-changing. You may be uncertain of the road ahead. You may be feeling scared. Or angry. We understand and validate those emotions – they are a completely normal part of grieving. To help you navigate this difficult journey, we have put together a brief overview of some wonderful books and information. These books are made to be a resource for you, whether you are the patient, family, or caregiver.
The Invesible String
Parents, educators, therapists, and social workers alike have declared The Invisible String the perfect tool for coping with all kinds of separation anxiety, loss, and grief. In this relatable and reassuring contemporary classic, a mother tells her two children that they’re all connected by an invisible string. “That’s impossible!” the children insist, but still they want to know more: “What kind of string?” The answer is the simple truth that binds us all: An Invisible String made of love.
Lifetimes
Lifetimes is a moving book for children of all ages, even parents too. It lets us explain life and death in a sensitive, caring, beautiful way. Lifetimes tells us about beginnings. And about endings. And about living in between. With large, wonderful illustrations, it tells about plants. About animals. About people. It tells that dying is as much a part of living as being born. It helps us to remember. It helps us to understand.
How Do I Know You?
Caring for someone with dementia presents different challenges than caring for people with other health care issues. It doesn’t “play by the rules” that signify approaching death from disease or old age. This booklet outlines the issues and progress that a person with dementia will probably follow. The aim of this booklet is to provide information regarding approaching end of life to those people, family and significant others, who are caring and making decisions for someone with dementia.
Caring For The Dying
Caring for the Dying describes a whole new way to approach death and dying. It explores how the dying and their families can bring deep meaning and great comfort to the care given at the end of a life. Created by Henry Fersko-Weiss, the end-of-life doula model is adapted from the work of birth doulas and helps the dying to find meaning in their life, express that meaning in powerful and beautiful legacies, and plan for the final days. It also covers the work of reprocessing a death with the family afterward and the early work of grieving.
When Things Fall Apart
How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart—when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? The answer, Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined. Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, she offers tools to transform suffering and negativity into habitual ease and boundless joy.