Welcome - personal message.
Dear
Friends,
Thanks
for your interest in my website – I am speaking only for myself, not on behalf
of any organization. Death work is
important and needed in our culture. It is work that should be
shared, since sooner or later, we all will need it.
If you get nothing else from this website, please know this: It is not a foregone conclusion that some people are just better than others at handling illness and death. I came to understand that helping people at end-of-life is a skill that can be learned and developed by asking questions and using attentional acivities.
I put together this package of questions and practices because
have a personal history of being seriously freaked out by death. I am a super sensitive person, and in intense situations, I would be the one in the room paralyzed by fear. I admit it. However, in the past decade, through
circumstance, I needed to get better at handling death and terminal illness because I
was called upon to help people I knew. A couple of my friends were going
through cancer and death, and my husband has become quite disabled by
Parkinson’s. I also took on nursing as a second career, and I found myself
in the position of helping many people at end-of-life. It was simply time I stepped
up to the task!
I have had a regular meditation practice for years. When another one of my friends was diagnosed with cancer, I added death meditations to my repertoire. I also helped to found a Death Cafe in my small town and started reading about death and dying. Also, I started attending small reading and discussion groups on death and dying, in order to act more effectively and improve my caregiving practice. It worked! I have found myself numerous times in intense situations where I can remain calm and do my best caregiving.
We all will experience loss and death, and my wish is that we can better attend our friends, family and clients, and eventually, ourselves.
May we
build presence, courage, equanimity, and humor.
Marcie
Vallette
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Marcie Vallette