It’s the topic most people hate. Fear, even.We don’t want to think about it, yet every one of us will experience it. Dying. The care of those who are dying is often called palliative care. I used to think I knew what that meant, but I discovered it’s a far broader term than I knew. […]

Brenda and Greta on her 90th birthday Picture a young girl of eight or nine standing in the aisle after church. Disabled by crippling shyness, she stares at an older lady. Her enormous brown eyes, her only redeeming feature, are covered with glasses, and she shifts her chubby body from foot to foot as she

Bad new creeps up from behind and slaps you.It is shocking. Painful. Paralysing. But sometimes, while you are reeling and keening, good news puts a comforting hand on your shoulder and says. “I am here.” If you follow me at all, you know of the emotional last month with the Aviva Community Fund contest and

Where have all the poppies gone? It’s the end of November, and the poppies that were everywhere a few weeks ago have mostly disappeared. They’ve been replaced by holly and poinsettias. “To everything there is a season…”Right? I’m not sure. We said “Lest we forget.” We haven’t forgotten, exactly, but life moves on. It’s time

Geraldine was upset. Her regular caregiver was off today, and the staff member who was helping her wasn’t as familiar with her routines. She didn’t wash her the same way, and didn’t talk about what she was doing. She was friendly and efficient, but it wasn’t the same. By the time she was ready for

Barbara was devastated. Her gentle, refined auntie, who she had always loved and looked up to, had just “bitten her head off.” Barbara had entered her room for a visit, and had hugged her as she had done with every visit since she was a child. Auntie had drawn back with a scowl and growled

                       The welcoming dining room in The Annex I probably won’t have a gravestone.But if I did, I know what I’d want it to say.She made a difference.And I’d want it to be true. At Christie Gardens, where I work, I have the opportunity every

I don’t know much about guns. I shot one once, at a target. I missed. I know a gun has a trigger, and in order to shoot it, you have to pull the trigger. (Duh!) I learned that first from Road Runner cartoons. Wile E. Coyote would shoot his gun and then stand casually blowing

Some of the best content on Facebook is when my daughter posts pictures of my granddaughter’s visits to the Hallowe’en aisle of WalMart. Picture a  cherubic six-year-old who favours pink and anything with sparkles, wearing the most ghoulish masks imaginable. She loves blood dripping and skin hanging. When she’s wearing one of those masks, I

This is the final instalment in my series on communication with a person with dementia. A person with dementia lives in a different reality from yours. What is real and true and makes perfect sense to them may sound like disconnected babble to you. Or, the words and even the concepts may make sense, but