Literature Review

Hospice of Michigan Receives $10,000 Grant from the Fund for the Community of the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community FoundationNews ReleaseDecember 5, 2023Petoskey, MI—Hospice of Michigan recently received a $10,000 grant from the Fund for the Community of the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation in support of its grief support services. The grant will help individuals in Emmet County, both adults and children, who are coping with the loss of a loved one.

A President’s GriefPodcastAll There Is with Anderson Cooper/CNN.comDecember 6, 2023[For his podcast All There Is, about living with grief, CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed President Biden, who, Cooper writes, has “been more open than any sitting US president about the deaths he’s experienced and the grief he still lives with [having lost his wife and infant daughter when he was 30 and his older son Beau to brain cancer following Beau’s deployment to Iraq].” When Cooper showed up at the White House for the interview, he asked if he could trade the traditional interview setup—two chairs far apart—for a more intimate setting across a table; Biden agreed. The result, Cooper says, was the most “personal interview about grief and loss” that a US president has ever taken part in.]

Hospice of Santa Barbara’s Light Up a Life Ceremony Honors Lost Loved Ones During Holiday SeasonSanta Barbara (CA) NoozhawkDecember 6, 2023Montecito, CA—Hospice of Santa Barbara brought people together Wednesday evening for its 40th annual Light Up a Life ceremony in Montecito to honor loved ones who have passed away. Each year, Hospice of Santa Barbara holds this event in locations throughout the South Coast, where people can purchase paper stars to hang on the community Christmas tree and dedicate them to family or friends who have died. ... “One of the reasons we come here every season is because we want to be able to look around and know that we are not alone in our grief, in our love and care and remembrance of those we’ve lost,” the Rev. Julia Hamilton said. ... Hospice of Santa Barbara also has a Virtual Tree of Remembrancene where people can dedicate a digital star and upload photos and messages for their loved ones.

Guthrie held its Tree for Life eventWENY-TV (Horseheads, NY)December 4, 2023Sayre, PA—Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital held its annual ‘Tree for Life’ event to support the Guthrie Hospice. This is the 34th year the hospital held the event. and many gathered to honor their loved ones.

Never Visit a Dying PersonBy Virginia A. Simpson, PhDNext AvenueDecember 1, 2023Before a fit of disgust at my callousness takes over, I’m going tell you what I mean when I say, Never visit a dying person. After a young woman named Beyhan died, her friends put together her words and published a small book called “Beyhan’s Journey.” Beyhan said, I could always tell when someone was visiting a dying person. She meant that because they no longer saw her as the person she still was, they treated her differently. The message is this: Visit the person, not their disease, diagnosis or prognosis.[Editor’s Note: The author has worked with dying and grieving people for more than 38 years. She’s the author of “The Space Between: A Memoir of Mother-Daughter Love at the End of Life.”]

Light-a-Life Tree Lighting for Hospice BuffaloWKBW-TV (Buffalo, NY)December 2, 2023Buffalo, NY—Hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo hosted its 35th annual Light-a-Life Memorial Tree Lighting Ceremony. This is a longstanding tradition that provides an opportunity to remember loved ones who were cared for by Hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo.

A woman’s hospice death leads to a police standoff at an Orange homeKBMT-TV (Beaumont, TX)December 2, 2023Orange, TX—SWAT responded to a standoff at a house in Orange after a husband didn’t want his wife’s body be taken away. Around 7 p.m. a call was made about a woman in hospice passing away, according to Orange Police Sergeant Isaac T. Henry III. Soon after a hospice nurse called saying the husband made suicidal and threatening comments to people because he was upset that his wife had passed away, Henry told 12News crew at the scene. When Orange police responded there was a short standoff2. The husband eventually came out of the house and is now going to have a mental evaluation, according to Henry.

This grief therapist draws on her own experience with loss to help othersOrange County RegisterNovember 30, 2023Claire Bidwell Smith is no stranger to grief. She lost both of her parents to cancer at a young age—her mother when she was 18, and her father when she was 25. “I entered into my adult life with a lot of grief and was just trying to figure out everything that had happened to me. After my mom died, everybody was like ‘You’ll be fine. You’re an adult, just go forward into your life.’ And I wasn’t fine. It was really, really hard.” ... Based in Santa Monica, Smith initially worked in hospice before starting a private practice as a grief therapist, now facilitating online grief support groups and in-person retreats. And she never stopped writing. Smith has published three nonfiction books about grief; her new book, “Conscious Grieving,” comes out in March 2024.