Healing the Warrior Within: An Inspiring Story of Survival and Spiritual Growth -49
Get ready for one of the most moving episodes of Dog Tag Diaries yet. In this honest conversation, Caroline Flores pulls back the curtain on her journey from a chaotic childhood in a traditional Mexican-American home, through the trials of military service, and into her evolution as a spiritual healer. Expect raw truths about mental health in the military—topics like surviving suicide attempts, battling shame and isolation after deployment, struggling with belonging, and the hard realities facing women veterans.
Caroline and host Kim also touch on equine therapy, healing through spirituality, and breaking destructive generational cycles. If you’re searching for inspiration on trauma recovery, women’s resilience, or reclaiming your voice, this episode promises to leave you feeling empowered and seen. Don’t miss the real story behind military service, growth, and hope.
Caroline Flores grew up in a home that was both joyful and unstable, where sensitivity was met with silence and expectations overshadowed emotion. She joined the Army in search of something solid—something different—and for a while, she thought she’d found it. But deployments brought more than duty; they unearthed buried pain, led her through the mental health system’s broken maze, and eventually into the depths of multiple suicide attempts that changed her forever.
But Caroline didn’t stay there. She rose—with grit, grace, and a fierce commitment to her healing. Today, she is a spiritual healer and therapist who empowers others to find clarity, reclaim their stories, and reconnect with the warrior within.
She’s proof that trauma doesn’t define you—but how you choose to transform it does.
Connect with Caroline:
🌿 Instagram: @claridadhealing
🌿 Website: claridadtherapyservices.godaddysites.com
Kim Liska served in the United States Army/Reserves as a Combat Medic, Combat Nurse, Flight Nurse Instructor and one of the Top Female athletes in the Army. Kim worked 20+ years as an ER nurse and decided to explore the world as a travel nurse. She's an Advanced Wilderness Expedition Provider and Chief Medical Officer for numerous endurance/survival expeditions in different countries. Kim has a son, Jace and a daughter in law, Sammy and 2 grand animals, Joey & Bear. Her dog Camo is her best buddy. Camo is the sweetest yellow Labrador Retriever to walk this earth. He loves licking snow, riding the ocean waves, visiting carnivore food trucks and loves belly rubs and treats. Fun Facts: Kim's lived in the Reality TV World! Fear Factor, American Ninja Warrior-Military Edition, American Tarzan, Spartan Namibia and more to come!
Be sure to follow or subscribe to Dog Tag Diaries wherever you listen to podcasts.
Learn more about Reveille and Retreat Project:
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You aren’t alone.
If you’re thinking about hurting yourself or having thoughts of suicide contact the
Veteran crisis line: Dial 988 then press 1, chat online, or text 838255.
Transcript
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Sarah Peterson [:Welcome to enduring grief, healing practices and true stories of living after loss, where we dive into real, honest conversations about the journey through grief and the support that makes it possible. I'm Sarah Peterson, an LCSW, and in this space, I bring my experience as someone who has walked this path, as well as my work with my nonprofit Clear Morning. I'm often joined by two incredible guests, Dr. Marlis Beier and Dr. Dean Sharpe, both incredible people and physicians who've spent their lives caring for people and have supported me personally on my journey through grief. In our first episode, I'll share my personal story and how I've come to this work, why it matters so deeply to me and how it might resonate with you. Whether you're navigating your own loss or standing by someone who is, this space is for you. Join me as we uncover the stories, the struggles, and the hope that lead to healing. Let's walk through this journey together.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, welcome back, listeners. I am so thrilled to have a very special guest today. I am with Lesley Sacks, who is the executive director of probably one of the most incredible places called Hopewell House here in Portland, Oregon. Welcome, Lesley.
Lesley Sacks [:Thank you so much. I'm very honored to be here.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. It's really special. I'm on, like, a tour right now collecting interviews from some of the most amazing women in the grief world. And I was brought to Lesley through a mutual friend, and we're so excited because Heidi is amazing, and she introduced us. So thank you, Heidi. Shout out. And the topic today is anticipatory grief. Leslie and I share some common, I guess, bullet points on our resume, both having worked in hospice care.
Sarah Peterson [:And when you're working with seniors and elders in the terminally and chronically ill, you can't help but also be with their families and help them come to terms with the slow goodbye. And so, yeah, I think because of Lesley's experience, she's the perfect guest to talk about anticipatory grief. So, Lesley, tell us, what is your experience? What have you done?
Lesley Sacks [:Well, thank you. I have done a lot. And it's funny when you said working with families. You often encounter families in this work. And truly, when I first started in this work, I was doing an internship for my master's in social work at a nursing facility, and I thought, well, this is a population I don't really wanna work with, so I'll just step outside my comfort zone.
Sarah Peterson [:Uh-huh.
Lesley Sacks [:And I ended up loving it because it was so much family work. It is such a beautiful experience to be able to work with large families, large support systems through the journey of aging and also of dying.
Lesley Sacks [:So I got my start in my twenties, when after I received my master's in social work. I worked for about ten years in a long term care community doing social work for residential care facility. I also managed the adult day center, which provided social support for people with cognitive impairments. And then I moved into the nursing home doing admissions coordination and social work case management for their rehab and long term care unit. So that's what I learned. I learned a lot learned a lot about the system, about how these sorts of facilities work, about how insurance works, and also about the process of saying goodbye and of seeing someone decline over time and how that impacts that resident and also their family and their loved ones. From there, I moved on, and I became a hospice social worker for a wonderful organization.
Lesley Sacks [:Hospice Care of the Northwest was what it was called at the time, and I was a social worker there for about six years,
Sarah Peterson [:Wow.
Lesley Sacks [:And then became a social work manager overseeing the other social workers and chaplains, where I learned more specifically about death and dying and that process and how to best support people and how to help hold their grief and their, losses, throughout their journey. So that's what led me eventually to Hopewell House when they were looking for a new executive director.
Sarah Peterson [:Holy cow. Does this seem like your dream job?
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. It was interesting when I read the job description for this role, I was reading it and I thought, gosh, this reads like rare, like my resume in terms of the things that they were looking for, someone who'd had facility experience and understood kind of that world, but also hospice experience and could deal with all of the nuances of that. And I just thought, what a perfect meld of the experiences I've had that's culminated with this. So I will say, working in this community with these folks here at Hopewell House is like nothing I've ever done before. It's a beautiful community of support, not just the staff, of course, who are amazing, but we have 160 volunteers here
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, my gosh.
Lesley Sacks [:Contribute to all areas of the home and of the care, and that has made it really meaningful. Lots of deep relationship, lots of connection with the mission and what we're doing, so it feels very personal to a lot of people to make this place successful.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, gosh. Yeah. I bet. And for those of you who don't maybe understand what it takes to be a social worker in a long term care facility, I just wanna say thank you for your service.
Lesley Sacks [:Oh, thank you.
Sarah Peterson [:Because Lesley and others who are there bringing those pieces together are truly the superheroes of that chapter of most people's lives. Like, if you are relying on your facility to help you find permanent placement, to find caregivers, to make sure your meds are right, to get a doctor, to get all those things,
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:That's the social worker doing all that, and it is not easy. That is boots on the ground social work.
Lesley Sacks [:It is. It really is. It's a very interdisciplinary environment where you're working with all the different components of the immunity, the facility, and the families, and you're just sort of conducting a little bit.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh my gosh. Yeah. I was just watching the show. It's about emergency room drama. And, like, anytime anything gets hard or uncomfortable, the script is like, well, let's call the social worker.
Lesley Sacks [:Yes. Exactly.
Sarah Peterson [:I'd like you to meet the social worker. This seems really hard.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:We can't fix this with a medical intervention, so we're gonna go ahead and call a social worker. I bet that was you
Lesley Sacks [:Totally.
Sarah Peterson [:all the time every day.
Lesley Sacks [:Intense family. Crazy drama.
Sarah Peterson [:Get the social worker. They don't have a doctor. Get the social worker.
Lesley Sacks [:Exactly. Yes. Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:So, yes, thank you for your service.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. Well and you know as a social worker, that's just part of what drives you. You wanna be a connector. You wanna help solve a problem. Social workers are often problem solved.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Do you find that you do that in your personal life?
Lesley Sacks [:Yes. Typically. Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:All the time.
Lesley Sacks [:All the time. Yeah. All the time.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:No. I never quite set it down. No.
Lesley Sacks [:It's it's definitely part of probably my nature and why many people get into this work, is they just feel a sense of wanting to make sure everything is working well and caring for people, and is everyone okay, and how's everyone doing? And that's just part of the job.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. And it's certainly not projection.
Lesley Sacks [:No. Never. Never.
Sarah Peterson [:This has nothing to do with me and my issues. Thank you very much.
Lesley Sacks [:That's true.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. So tell us what Hopewell House is.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. Hopewell House is a residential care home. It's located in the hills of Southwest Portland. It's actually on a campus that is an original 1926 English tutor home, four acres of property, that was donated in the late '80s to our founder. Her name is Joan Buell, who had a vision to bring hospice to Portland. And so there was a care wing built onto this home in the late '80s, and it was ran as a hospice home for almost thirty years with different owners and operators. For the majority of its time, a large major health system purchased it and ran it as an inpatient hospice, almost like a hospital for hospice. And that was successful for a long time until 2019 when they closed it, and they decided they were gonna sell the property off and for a variety of reasons.
Lesley Sacks [:But the community who'd worked here volunteered here, families who'd experienced loss here, everyone reacted to the word that it was going to be sold, and there was a huge grassroots effort to save it and
Sarah Peterson [:Wow.
Lesley Sacks [:reopen it. So a community of people joined forces, created a board, started a nonprofit, raised the funds to purchase this home, and now it is a standalone nonprofit. We are called Friends of Hopewell House that reopened the home in January of 2023. So we've been open in this entity for a little over two years, and we're a residential care home. So I always say that we're a home, and we take care of people who are on hospice and who are in the very last stage of life. So our residents can be here for days to weeks, sometimes up to a few months, or even longer sometimes as things don't always go as planned.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:But it is definitely for that last phase of life when the care is more intense, the emotions are stronger. There's a lot more support that's needed for not just the residents, but the family and all the emotions and physical needs that come with that. So we are not a hospice provider per se. We have every resident who comes here has a hospice team that visits them here, but we work collaboratively with those teams to help manage and really bring them along their journey of dying here. It's not just symptom management. It's all kinds of environmental awareness of what death and dying looks like, feels like, sounds like, honoring people's wishes and choices and how they want to have their death experience, who they want around them, what it looks like and feels like. We wanna be able to offer a really beautiful, unique environment for them to spend their last days.
Sarah Peterson [:Wow. We are sitting here at Friends of Hopewell House, and they were in this beautiful room where if my whole house could be painted this color, I think it was so lovely.
Lesley Sacks [:Such a calming green
Sarah Peterson [:And we're just looking out at all the trees and rhododendrons, and it's just so warm and welcoming and beautiful. So far in this one room that I've seen, you guys are really
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. They went in. This is a beautiful space. It's called the Hope Room because we have the word hope in all different languages at the top of the
Sarah Peterson [:It's just phenomenal.
Lesley Sacks [:And it looks onto some of our grounds. We have a lot of outdoor spaces that are accessible for all the families and visitors, of course. But even our residents sit outside a lot in their hospital beds. We move them out and sit in the sun or in the rain or in the snow or whatever they need to get the nature and be outside.
Sarah Peterson [:That's wonderful. But it is the best of both worlds, because having been in the hospice Medicare inpatient unit world myself, I know that, at times, it creates a lot of barriers. I mean, people can't stay for months, and you have to continue to meet criteria and the overhead and the I mean, this is a dream.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. It's lovely.
Sarah Peterson [:I bet.
Lesley Sacks [:It gives us a lot of freedom and ability for our families and residents to stay here throughout their journey. Dying is not a straight line. It has peaks and valleys, and, sometimes people who are told by a physician that they'll have a week to live end up having months to live, vice versa. And so timelines aren't always clear, and so we wanted to have the flexibility to be able to really serve people for as long as they needed to be here during their dying time.
Sarah Peterson [:You guys sound so smart.
Lesley Sacks [:Oh.
Sarah Peterson [:Like, you understand some things that the greater system, like, refuses to understand.
Lesley Sacks [:I totally, I do agree, and I would say it's not just me, of course. The board and all of the volunteers who came together to conceive of this reopening are so in tune and adept with these kinds of issues, grief, with dying. There's so many of us, who are involved here who are death doulas, who are practitioners, who are former hospice providers, and they just had a wealth of knowledge that was poured into creating this environment and this model that is just beautiful. And, you know, there are other places I know in different parts of The United States. There's actually another home in Oregon called Celia's House that we're modeled after who are trying to do some of the same things where they wanna have a place for people to die that is really focused on the dying time as a sacred time, and less of a medical experience, and just, you know, symptom management. And of course, you want people to be comfortable, but what does that mean? What does comfort mean? What is attached to that when it comes to people's spiritual beliefs? Their food, their family, the people who are with them, all of those things are so incredibly important when it comes to death.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. And how do you see an experience, like, if your loved one was dying here at Friends of Hopewell House, how could that enhance or implicate the anticipatory grief process? Like, what's the things that you see typically coming out? I mean, I know there's two parts. Right? The anticipatory grief of the person who is dying which is there. As far as families and loved ones around them or who they identify as their main people, what are the classic things you see show up in the anticipatory grief process? And I guess I should qualify in case this language seems like jargon. Anticipatory grief is the process of saying goodbye, knowing that the end is near or coming or marching toward you. And what does that feel like? Because the person is still here, and yet we are watching things fade away all the while. And each time something goes away, there's grief involved.
Sarah Peterson [:I mean, that's like the story of life. You get a new car, there's grief involved. You get a new job, there's grief involved. Even if it's the best car that you're getting or the best dream job, there's still grief.
Lesley Sacks [:I was just gonna say that I was thinking about, like, there's so much positives that can happen that can create anticipatory grief.
Sarah Peterson [:Exactly.
Lesley Sacks [:Children getting ready to go off to college and or buying a new home and moving. I was thinking about my own son when we told him that we were moving into a new home that was bigger and beautiful and on a great street, and he was just really lamenting that everything was going to change. We were all excited and saw it as a positive, and there's still loss, and there's still things to talk about and process. So even when things are wonderful in life that are happening, there may be anticipatory grief involved with those changes.
Sarah Peterson [:Because you die to who you once were. He'll never be that guy living in that house again. It's done.
Lesley Sacks [:Exactly. Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:And I think that anticipatory grief and then I promise I'll let you answer the question if we can even remember it. It's holding both. Right? Like, yes. They're here, and they are not going to be here.
Lesley Sacks [:Exactly. Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:So tell us what you see out there.
Lesley Sacks[:Well, gosh. We see this all the time. Of course, with every admission, with every person that comes to Hopewell House, there's a level of anticipatory grief that they are going through, because this house is precisely for people who are dying. So no one comes here not knowing that this is the last place that they're going to be and as well as their families knowing that on some level
Sarah Peterson [:Right.
Lesley Sacks [:Despite that despite the fact that we are a hospice house, that people are here for their dying time, we still have families, and sometimes even residents, who are in the processing phase of knowing that they're dying, of trying to figure out how to accept it. We have many families who get here after being in the hospital in particular, because in the hospital, sometimes things have moved very quickly. Someone might have had a very precipitous decline that sent them to the ER, and then they get admitted, and then all of a sudden it's, Oh, by the way, we've done everything we can, and now we're at the end of life. And perhaps that person was dealing with a chronic or even a terminal disease, but they weren't quite at the point where they thought they were at the end.
Lesley Sacks [:And they're being told this in the hospital at the same time that they're being told they also have to leave and find a place to die.
Sarah Peterson [:Sounds like a lot. It's a lot. I mean, it looks like a lot coming at you, folks.
Lesley Sacks [:That process in the hospital I mean, I think about those social workers in the hospital all the time because the amount of information that's being thrown at families and at people is tremendous, and the amount of decisions that have to be made in such a short period of time are very overwhelming. So we at Hopewell House are always coming from looking at things with the lens of, This is where this family just came from, so how overwhelmed are they? What did they even hear? How much did they take in? What did the doctor tell them? I mean, sometimes they're hearing from us, after their loved one is here, that their loved one's probably going to die in the next forty eight hours.
Sarah Peterson [:And sometimes I laugh at myself, like, I can't say no to my neighbor because she's asking me to go for a walk, but yet then the one who's had to tell people instead of their doctor that they're dying. I mean, I'm like, where what? This doesn't line up. But it is often not often. Maybe that's too extreme. But there are times in which the curative medical staff just don't have time, energy, skills, whatever it is that stops them from dishing out the truth. It's hard.
Lesley Sacks [:It's a hard language. I often think that sometimes the way it's communicated from a physician in particular might just be too medicalized, maybe, too much lingo or jargon, or it's just not quite as direct as I think people need to hear directness. And I actually think that once they feel like people are being direct and honest and leveling with them, it unlocks something where you can get closer to acceptance. And there's also a trust built that these people are telling me the truth, even if it's information that I don't like hearing.
Sarah Peterson [:No kidding. I mean, when my dad was dying in the hospital, I just remember it was the middle of the night, and the nurse I just felt like we'd been going round and round, and I just, like, wasn't getting it. And, I mean, I was a hospital social worker, and finally, I'm like, dude, is he dying? He's like, yeah. He's dying.
Lesley Sacks [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:Like, okay.
Lesley Sacks [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:Thank you. This is terrible news. And yet, now I can make the right moves. Like, now I know what to do, which ultimately, in the spiritual form for me says, I'm gonna replace one hope with another.
Lesley Sacks [:Mhmm
Sarah Peterson [:I'm gonna take away the hope that he's gonna survive, that he's gonna get better, and I'm gonna replace it with the hope that he can get home, that his symptoms will be managed, that our family will survive this loss. I don't know what it is, but I do think that I mean, we are at the hopeful house. Hope is so much a part of that anticipatory process because the medicine for a lot of these families has been the hope that their person's gonna get better.
Lesley Sacks [:Exactly. And I think that's where a lot of anticipatory grief that we see starts is a lot of control that's being held by families, where they just wanna make sure, well, did we try this? What about this medicine? They're really hyper focused on some of the more technical aspects of their stay, of, like, when they're getting this med and when they're doing this. And it's almost like if I have something to control.
Sarah Peterson [:Right.
Lesley Sacks [:Then I feel like I'm doing something, number one. And there's also a little bit of a hanging on to, well, can we try this, and what about that? And maybe that will give them a little bit more time. And so I think that that's where a lot of people start, where it's more of a, If I can control the situation, then they're not really leaving yet. They're not really going. I'm still kind of in charge.
Lesley Sacks [:And that usually starts to crack once they get to know us. I keep coming back to trust, because I think,
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah, it takes the edge off.
Lesley Sacks [:It takes a lot of time for people to feel really comfortable to let down their guard and be able to have acceptance, to get out of denial, to feel that the people who are caring for your loved one are listening to you, are trusting you as the resident or as a family who knows the resident best. I do think that there's a lot of historical experiences where people feel like in the medical community. I'm speaking generally, but I do think that sometimes people are talked at and not always listened in terms of being the expert on their own bodies or being the expert in the personality of your loved one that you've known for fifty years, that's incredible knowledge. We have to listen to those people and hear their stories and hear where they're coming from so that we know best how to take care of somebody and also figure out how to best hold their family and take that grief that is clearly coming out through, whether it's control, anger, frustration. Sometimes I see a lot of frustration with families who feel like, well, they didn't do this, and this isn't happening. And it's just really a grief response. And we know that, but we have to take it and hold it, and then it's almost like wrap them closer. Hold them closer.
Sarah Peterson [:Let them be pissed.
Lesley Sacks [:Be mad. And that's okay.
Sarah Peterson [:Sorry. We're explicit. We can say.
Lesley Sacks [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:We can say pissed.
Lesley Sacks [:Okay I didn't know if we could say.
Sarah Peterson [:We could say pissed. We could say.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah all the things.
Lesley Sacks [:So, yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:You have to let them.
Lesley Sacks [:You have to let them. And so as, of course, as the team, as a staff and volunteer team, we wanna make sure we know not to take things super personally. It's not about us usually. There's usually a lot more going on that has nothing to do with us. We just happen to be the vessel that's here, the receptacle.
Sarah Peterson [:And having watched so many families go through this, would you say that same approach would be fair to, like, the social circles, the family circles? Like, just don't take it personally.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, let the primary griever be the primary griever.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. And I know that can be difficult in large families in particular when there's a lot of siblings or just a lot of big family emotions. I don't know that I've ever had a family here that hasn't had some complexity.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Lesley Sacks [:I don't use the word dysfunction because I don't think that that's really accurate. I think all families have complexity, and sometimes they are strained relationships. They are who haven't spoken for a long time, and now all of a sudden they're coming together because of this event, because of this person's death. So all of that comes out when they're here.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:We see it, and we have to kinda hold the space for them. And sometimes that means giving them food, a bowl of soup, a treat. It's making sure they know that our pet therapists are here. Would they like to have some time with an animal? Would they like to get a massage from one of our therapists here? Those are all ways that we can both offer comfort and coping mechanisms and build trust to see that this is an environment where they can receive care in their community that they're in. So I would say that, going back to the anticipatory piece of this, many of our families certainly move through it, And obviously, when someone dies, they've died. There's no denying at that point that this has happened. But I do think that we generally do get to a pretty good place with most of our families when they start to really see, especially when things have physically changed
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:So much, it's hard to deny what's in front of your eyes.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, and it's hard not to want the suffering to stop.
Lesley Sacks [:Exactly. I often compare it to birth. Like, you might be really nervous when you find out you're pregnant because birth is gonna be painful, and the whole pregnancy experience can be really scary and vulnerable. But at nine months and four days, you kind of don't care anymore how badly it's going to hurt. You are done. The baby needs to come out. And death, I see in the same way.
Sarah Peterson [:I mean, I watched my mom just, like, be in the most severe state of denial until about three hours before he died, and then it was like, you can go. Because this is not it.
Lesley Sacks [:Yes. Absolutely.
Sarah Peterson [:And so being able to help get people to that point, even sooner, obviously, is better than the last three hours. But that really leads me to my next question. Because in grief, the way we teach it, not always the way we behave it, because I can be a really judgy griever, to be honest, but is let people have their process. Right? Let them be grieved. There is no right way, etcetera. But with anticipatory grief in a helping profession, I think there's more pressure to edge them toward the, "right way"
Lesley Sacks [:Mhmm.
Sarah Peterson [:Because the wrong way and I'm using these words loosely. Right? But, like, the wrong way can really be a detriment. Do you find that same sort of pressure?
Lesley Sacks [:Yes. I think it's very difficult sometimes for us not to feel that pressure to really try to get people move them along and not let them wallow in however they're experiencing their anticipatory grief, particularly when it's a negative way. I can think of an example, actually, of a gentleman who's really struggling with his mother's impending death, and really just did not want to accept that this was happening. I just think he wasn't it's like he knew it was happening, but he wasn't ready to accept it. And his way of handling it was turning into kind of a boss around here and was trying to, like, pick up equipment in other people's rooms and start telling people what to do. It was like he wanted to manage things.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:And he was kinda rude.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Lesley Sacks [:Frankly, kind of overwhelming for some of our staff, a little bit of, like, dude energy that moves a lot for people that felt disrespectful to the staff.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:So there is a line where, like, yeah, we want you to grieve how you need. We recognize that this is a grief response. And people also have to be inappropriate in a community, and we don't want our staff or volunteers to feel like they have to take abuse.
Sarah Peterson [:Right. Absolutely.
Lesley Sacks [:And screaming or swearing or inappropriate behavior, like so there is some nuance to what's acceptable.
Lesley Sacks [:But I would say that having an open mind and knowing, particularly with different cultures, with people who come from different backgrounds, grief is expressed in lots of different ways, and we may not recognize it as, quote, unquote, like, normal grief. It might look different. It might feel strange, but we also have to be aware of those nuances.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:So that we can support people correctly and not judge for.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, it's so hard. I had this one. She was probably in her early forties, a mess. A terrible death. You know? She was and she's leaving behind her beautiful children who are older teenagers, young twenties. And the oldest child was so steeped in denial. Like, he could not get there. And my visit started to feel like I was just pounding him over the head with, your mother is dying.
Sarah Peterson [:Your mother is dying. You need to come to terms with it. You need to say the things you need to say. You're gonna be so sad someday that you didn't do it this way. And I think about that case so often, Lesley, and I don't know what the right thing to do was there because I do believe, like I know I feel in my bones that he needed.
Lesley Sacks [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:To come to terms with this so that he could leave nothing unsaid or be with her because he was avoiding even being with his mom who he loved so much because he couldn't face that. And the fear that I lived with that he was gonna regret that so deeply for the end of till the end of time compelled me to keep having this conversation. But then on the other hand, I'm like, it's his life. He's allowed to do it his way, and yet what the hell is my job then?
Lesley Sacks [:Totally. Gosh. That's such good insight into your own experience because I think that's really hard. I think we try to talk about that a lot here is what is it are we bringing our own expectations about what is right because it's what it would be right for us or what we think is the right thing, and what are we putting on our families or on our residents, and is that
Sarah Pterson [:right?
Lesley Sacks [:Is that is that kind? Is it fair? What's the constant state of making sure that what we're doing is about them and not about us? That reminded me of I remember when my grandma was dying, and I was 12. I think I was 12. I was 13, maybe. She had pancreatic cancer, and I remember when she went on hospice in her own home, and they brought in the hospital bed, and I did not see her after that. And I chose not to see her after that, because I remember thinking And I very much remember this, that I wanted to just remember her how I remembered her. I did not want to have the sight of her in a hospice bed in her home, and that wasn't what I wanted a memory of. And I sometimes wonder if I should have done that, especially doing the work I do now.
Sarah Peterson [:Right.
Lesley Sacks [:And, actually, like, ten years later when my other grandmother died, and I was right there, and I remember every second of that. And it certainly didn't diminish my memories of her.
Sarah Peterson [:No. And it's such a rich,
Lesley Sacks [:It is.
Sarah Peterson [:Beautiful, sensitive time to be with somebody.
Lesley Sacks [:And that's kind of key is, I think, going all the way back to, like, what we could do to prepare people better or to have them think about anticipatory grief better is just the way we think about death, that it doesn't need to be something that we avoid or we don't want to acknowledge. Because I think when you have the opportunity to move through somebody during with somebody during their death, then you actually have a really rich opportunity to have a really meaningful, connective experience that is really not like anything else other than maybe birth, where you're just seeing somebody through to the end, and you can focus on talking about their life, doing life reviews, laughing, telling stories, looking at photos, finding out how they're feeling about it. I mean, I think so often, families in particular, I remember in hospice, I had so many families I'm sure you did too who said, Well, we don't want them to know they're on hospice. We're not going to use the word hospice. We want to protect them from their own death.
Sarah Peterson [:And I'd be like, they know they're dying.
Lesley Sacks [:They know they're dying. I know. I always said, well,
Sarah Peterson [:they don't,
Lesley Sacks [:they're aware.
Sarah Peterson [:Feel good.
Lesley Sacks[:I know. It was about their own fear of the death. And just if we say it, it's real. And
Lesley Sacks
I just think that if people had the opportunity to accept that, yes, this death is coming, and we may not know when it is, so let's talk about how we wanna spend our time.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Lesley Sacks [:Like, what could we do to make the time meaningful? And what are you know, asking our residents why we ask them, like, what kinds of foods do you love? What do you wanna hear in your room? How much light do you like in your room? And we want them to have control over some of those things because these are the last decisions they'll ever make.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. And I think that's where this notion of, like, I'll call it super trendy manifestation because I think we live in this society that says to us to a fault that if we think it, it will be true. And so people are resistant to thinking about the truth because maybe it'll make it actually happen or it will happen sooner. Like, if we talk about this, then they're gonna give up. And we're back to kind of, like, keeping the hope even if that hope is shifted because I think that's when people give up is when they're out of hope. And, also, I just wanna go on the record that people are allowed to give up. Like, when you're dying,
Sarah Peterson [:If you wanna call it. I mean, let's give people the right. And I'm not endorsing things that are dangerous or unsafe. But if you're admitted to a hospice program, you have a terminal illness, and you're in pain, and you are suffering, and you wanna just sort of say, I surrender to what nature is doing to me. Can we not fight that so hard?
Lesley Sacks [:I totally agree. I actually don't even like the words give up. I don't even
Sarah Peterson [:That's true. That's true.
Lesley Sacks [:Every time I hear that, I'm like, that doesn't mean that you lose.
Sarah Peterson [:No. You're right.
Lesley Sacks [:It's not always a it's not a battle that you've lost.
Lesley Sacks [:Everyone will die.
Sarah Peterson [:Everyone.
Lesley Sacks [:And so to me, it's just more about the journey, and how do I want
Sarah Peterson [:I trust the journey.
Lesley Sacks [:Experience this journey at this moment with the information that I have. And, yes, I would love to change that language or just that feeling. I mean, I get it, especially and we have a lot of people here who are young. We don't just serve people who are elderly here. I mean, we've had a range of people from their twenties into their hundreds,
Sarah Peterson [:and so those guys are fighting so hard.
Lesley Sacks [:I understand the fight mentality when you have a terminal disease at a young age, and you wanna do everything you can to make your time last as long as possible with people you love. That makes perfect sense to me. But I also wish that in tandem, there were conversations about understanding what palliative care means, what hospice is, what comfort means. Really talking about death openly before you're really even at that time, but talking about what you would want and some of the experiences you might have and what's important to you. And I just think that having a little bit of time to talk about those things and think about them before you're in a crisis is valuable.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh my gosh. Yeah. Because then you have choices.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:You can be conscious about what move you make next.
Lesley Sacks [:For sure.
Lesley Sacks [:The one
Lesley Sacks [:and I don't know how much you wanna get into this topic, but in Oregon, medical aid in dying is part of the law, and people have choices around that, around when their ending takes place, as long as they meet that criteria to utilize that. And so I will say that the folks who have come here who have utilized medical aid in dying, I would say that themselves and their families have a level of acceptance that is, on balance, I would say, far more advanced than folks who haven't, and that makes perfect sense to me.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. It's like the truth sets you free.
Lesley Sacks [:And there's a control element
Sarah Peterson [:For sure.
Lesley Sacks [:Where if you feel like you have a little bit of control over actually when you die, it frees you up from that fear, the unknown. You actually can hold space for just being. You have time, how do you want to plan, all those things.
Sarah Peterson [:I always think about anxiety being mystery plus fear. And in that particular situation, to eliminate the mystery in a lot of ways, like, when will it happen? When is the day gonna be here? To eliminate that part, I could see alleviating a lot of anxiety for people, especially the ones who are facing something like pancreatic cancer, where it's such a painful death and
Lesley Sacks [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:So many mysteries about how that's gonna be.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. And that's certainly not available to most people.
Sarah Peterson [:No.
Lesley Sacks [:And but it is an interesting, it's an interesting nuance that I've that I've noticed, and it and it makes sense. It's when you do have a little bit more control or a little bit more knowledge, it just takes away more, more fear, like you said, anxiety, even anger
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. For sure.
Lesley Sacks [:You know? And, yeah, we actually just served somebody here who went through that experience and who utilized medical aid in dying, and their time here for two weeks was spent beautifully with people visiting, people spending time celebrating a wedding anniversary with her partner, and they had a special dinner, and all of these really beautiful things that took place that they could plan and enjoy, even knowing that her death day was coming.
Sarah Peterson [:And I think, too, there's just wisdom there, as far as even if that is not accessible to you or that doesn't align with your belief system. Once you can accept the truth, again, a lot becomes available to you. A lot. And it's not because you're like, oh, this is suddenly okay with me. It can be both. This is not okay with me, and it is what it is. And, you know, in the grief world, my goal for my message or my hope for anybody would be to live in this reality, which is the actual place where they are, in the most meaningful way. And I think that the energy spent on denying and in disbelief is energy wasted in terms of what could be done.
Sarah Peterson [:Like you're saying, connection, community, love, support out of the fear world and more into the love.
Lesley Sacks [:And celebration.
Sarah Peterson [:And celebration.
Lesley Sacks [:I mean, I do like to say to people when they're here that we try to help people live well while they're dying. They are living while dying here, and so what does that life look like? And what can we do to the celebrations, like the anniversaries, the birthdays? I mean, we had a young resident here who had two small children, and it was in October, and she really wanted to have one more Christmas with them, and it was very clear she would not. So we did a Christmas in October, and we decorated the living room, and we put up all the decorations on the tree, and then we wrapped presents for the kids, and they got to open them with her, and wheeled her bed down into our main living room, and she got to watch them open presents and gifts. And it was beautiful. I mean, I think she died four days later.
Sarah Peterson [:Right. And what an incredible turn of events for those kids, especially. Like, that is a game changer in the life path of those children, and imagine if denial stood in the way.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. Exactly.
Sarah Peterson [:So we're back to my original thing, which is, like, how hard do we push people to come to terms?
Lesley Sacks [:It's a great question.
Sarah Peterson [:How hard?
Lesley Sacks [:I know it's something our nurses, in particular, struggle with because they have so much knowledge, of course.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:They're looking at somebody, and they can see what's happening. And we just kind of have to slowly educate.
Sarah Peterson [:I almost wish it was, like, part of the assessment questions for the family. How truthful would you like me to be?
Lesley Sacks [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:Can you handle the truth?
Lesley Sacks [:Actually, I do say to people, I wanna be really direct with you. Is that okay?
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. That's good.
Lesley Sacks [:I wanna give you honest information, but I also don't want to be upsetting. You know, I might ask permission sometimes just to check-in and
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:Again, sometimes I think it just takes a little bit of time, which sometimes people have and sometimes people don't have. But and trust knowing that they can trust the people that are caring for their loved one is huge because then they start to believe them mor when they're being told.
Sarah Peterson [:That's true. That's true. But what do you say to the family who you might believe, despite all the, what am I bringing to the table, and what's mine, and what's theirs, despite doing all of that contemplation, you're looking at this going, they're missing out.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:What do you say to them? Both as a clinician and maybe even as a friend, like, what would you want the friend to say to the family?
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. For sure. I think I would want them to say, I know that you are grappling with the fact that you're going through a loss and that this loss is going to happen, and we don't know when. And we wanna answer your questions, and we wanna make you feel like the very best care is given. But instead of focusing on some of those things, maybe we should be focusing on what they want and, like, what's meaningful to them right now. Maybe have a conversation with our the resident, with your loved one, and I'd love to know what's meaningful for them. What would they like here? Here's what we can offer you here. Almost like it's not that I'm changing the subject, but I wanna reframe the experience.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, you're shifting the hope.
Lesley Sacks [:And shifting the hope.
Sarah Peterson [:You're shifting the hope.
Lesley Sacks [:It was really about, like, let's really focus on this person who's going through this, and almost like giving them permission so that they don't have to think about their own grief anymore. They can actually focus on the person and what they want and what's meaningful to them, even if it's just for the day.
Sarah Peterson [:Right.
Lesley Sacks [:Like, what can we do today
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:that could be meaningful to you? How do you guys want to spend time? Would you like to go outside together? We make you X, Y, or Z, so you can enjoy this food together. I just sometimes think it's small. It's just incremental in those small ways that lead to a greater ability.
Sarah Peterson [:I agree. Because it allows people to feel successful in the change.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:I can handle talking about what's for dinner. Can't handle that we're never gonna have dinner again past this date because they'll be dead, but I can handle this. And then you build on that.
Lesley Sacks [:Yes. I remember we had a gentleman here whose wife was dying, and it was a slow because it was Alzheimer's dementia, which can I mean,
Sarah Peterson [:You're talking about a whole another anticipatory grief?
Lesley Sacks [:Mhmm. Yes. You are grieving for a long time, losing the person you knew and seeing them essentially waste away, and you almost have said goodbye to them while they're still alive. But he had been caring for her at home for so long, And finally, when she got here, it took a very long time for him to trust that we were going to care for her.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, gosh. Nobody can do it like him.
Lesley Sacks [:Not at all. And that she would be fed and given food, and that was very hard, hard because there were many times where she wouldn't even open her mouth.
Sarah Peterson [:She just did not want it anymore.
Lesley Sacks [:So we there was a lot of that push pull and trying to figure out how to communicate with him about what was going on. And ultimately, what I think broke down the barrier the best is when we had a volunteer or staff person just sit in the room with him and just get to know him. He'd start telling stories, and then he'd tell stories about her and them together. He'd start explaining about her history as a cook and how the food is love.
Lesley Sacks [:Like, you start to really understand where people's intentions are coming from, where we're just sometimes from a clinical perspective, you're like, well, they just wanna force food. No. They are forcing they're trying to create love and express it in the way that they always have throughout their marriage.
Sarah Peterson [:Right. And for eighty four years, this woman loved
Lesley Sacks [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:Bread pudding. Because what do you mean she doesn't want bread pudding?
Lesley Sacks [:Exactly.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Lesley Sacks [:But just sitting and listening to stories and letting us get to know him, but also him being able to talk, even if it's not about her or her dying process, it's just about their life. The storytelling, it opens again, it, like, unlocks a piece, a door where we can start to kind of peek around that door and get in as a trusting relationship. And I think that can go a long way.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, heck. Yeah. And I'm thinking of so many things, like his entire role identity is wrapped up into her being alive and eating, essentially. And now what? Job. Yeah. And probably hasn't sat and talked about himself, in quite a while because everything has probably revolved around her diagnosis for eons.
Lesley Sacks [:For sure.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Certainly, everything he thinks about, talks about, oh, there's so many things.
Lesley Sacks [:So many things. Yeah. That it was.
Sarah Peterson [:This is a hard job. You've been doing it a long time. Do you ever feel like I mean, I'm a not sure. I kind of once I lost my daughter and my dad, I've knew I had to take a step back from taking care of dying people. But I do think, like, if I could have one dying person a year, it would be so special because I do love it.
Lesley Sacks [:It is beautiful
Sarah Peterson [:It is beautiful.
Lesley Sacks [:Do say to me, like, gosh. That sounds so hard. And it is a hard job. I mean, my job is obviously, more than just caring for our residents. I'm running an organization, and I have a staff, and there's regulatory stuff, and it's a massive property. So there's all kinds of things about this job that can make it stressful or hard, but the actual caring for the dying is so uplifting, actually. Like
Sarah Peterson [:Do you ever just pop in a room and sit for a minute to, like, kinda catch your breath?
Lesley Sacks [:Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Lesley Sacks [:And also witnessing what's happening, like, witnessing our volunteers and our staff and what they do for our this community is so uplifting. It makes me feel proud, of course, but I'm also just I'm hopeful. It gives me so much hope, that word again, to see the a community hold the dying experience so beautifully is just really lovely. And so I think when people come in here and they feel how I wanna say magical. That sounds kind of silly, but it is a very soulful place, I suppose. And you do feel something special when you come in here.
Lesley Sacks [:And then we also tend to our grief here ourselves.
Sarah Peterson [:That was my next one.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. Our staff and our volunteers, we have things that we try to do to care for our own grief that we hold on our shoulders quite a bit. One of the things we do, and it's just a it's a ritual that we have, and that is with our dying residents. Once they've died, we actually do something called a walkout, where they, everybody who's here in the facility lines the hallway, and they are brought out, covered by a handmade quilt that they've picked out when they got here, made by our quilting volunteer team. And we all sprinkle flower petals on them as they are wheeled out with a song of choice that they or their family has selected, and sometimes the families are all there with them, walking behind them like a processional
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Lesley Sacks [:We just walk behind and see them out the door, and it's we stop what we're doing, hold space. We don't hide. We don't close the doors. We don't make sure nobody sees when the body leaves the building. That's not what we do here. It is very much a ritual where we all are honoring that person.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, that's so important for you guys.
Lesley Sacks [:Seeing them out, and it gives us a chance to say goodbye.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:And so that ritual alone, it goes a long way in helping us just kind of have a little bit of closure where we welcome them in, we got to know them, we connected, we got to know their families, and then we say goodbye and we let them leave. And so that's one way. I also do a monthly reading of the names that we offer for our staff and volunteers to come. And we just have a bowl with every resident who died that month, their name on it, and the date of their death. And we go around the circle and pick out the name, and we say it out loud. And sometimes we might have a sentence or a small anecdote that we have.
Lesley Sacks [:Sometimes it's just silence. It just depends, and we just read them all out loud. And, again, it's like honoring the people that are here, letting go of them, holding space for that, for our staff and our volunteers. It's we see so many people here
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:That we wanna make sure we're we don't become numb.
Sarah Peterson [:Totally. It's almost like you were in denial of yourself
Lesley Sacks [:Right.
Sarah Peterson [:If you weren't doing
Lesley Sacks [:something Of course.
;:Like a ritual around this because this is not the typical job. You are watching people leave
Lesley Sacks [:Mhmm.
Sarah Peterson [:Their earthly body. And to pause, to say, like, I can set down everything, I mean, I've worked in organizations, certainly at the as a hospital, hospice social work. Nothing stops.
Lesley Sacks [:Right. Nothing stops.
Sarah Peterson [:And then you're like, but can't we please just stop for a moment? No. Keep going. And the doors do close.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:And we need to shift the culture around that, and this is, like, pushing it further upstream back to the anticipatory grief. Like, let's talk about this. Let's let this be real for the paid caregivers, the clinicians, the professionals.
Lesley Sacks [:And the other thing that's really amazing about our walkouts is that all the other families that are here with residents that are still living are seeing our walkouts. So they're seeing this person who was here, who has died, and how we are honoring them and holding space and saying goodbye. They're seeing and witnessing their family crying or saying goodbye and walking out, and it's another opportunity for them to witness what it looks like.
Sarah Peterson [:Amazing. Get them and nudge them.
Lesley Sacks [:Yes. Exactly. And many of our families participate.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, my gosh.
Lesley Sacks [:They put flowers on them. And sometimes it's because they've gotten to know those families or those residents, so there's certainly that community feel here. But it's such a beautiful opportunity of almost like teaching and learning
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:For these other families to see and to acknowledge that, yes, death is happening here, and, yes, these people have died, and we're very much honoring it.
Sarah Peterson [:Right. Oh, what a gift.
Lesley Sacks [:Well, that's helpful.
Sarah Peterson [:And an opportunity, like you said, for them to face the truth.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. Well, we're almost out of time.
Lesley Sacks [:I know.
Sarah Peterson [:So fast. And, again
Lesley Sacks [:My goodness.
Sarah Peterson [:We did not reference our outline.
Lesley Sacks [:No. It's okay. I
Sarah Peterson [:but what did I miss? Is there anything here, Lesley, that I missed that you're like, oh, but I really wanna say these few things, Sarah.
Lesley Sacks [:Oh, man.
Sarah Peterson [:I really need the people to know this about anticipatory grief or preparing for death.
Lesley Sacks [:I mean, I just think I always recommend for people to just have conversations early and often with the loved ones in your life. I just sat down with my parents and my sister, and my parents are pretty I mean, they're in their early seventies. They're fairly healthy. There's nothing going on in terms of, like, a disease or an illness that is bringing us closer.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, you mean they don't have to be very sick in order to have this conversation?
Lesley Sacks [:They're not. And it's and it's precisely because I work in this field that I'm like, okay. We need to have some conversation.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:And I just needed to know all kinds of things, whether it's affairs, getting in fares in order and understanding where things are. What do they have for funeral plans? Do they have a plot? Do they wanna be buried? Do they wanna be cremated? We needed to sort all those things out, and those are the, like, the minimum conversations that we can have. And but starting to have them so that you have a comfortability talking about someone's death.
Sarah Peterson [:And I know we're not scientists, but I think we could say, as experts, that that won't make them die sooner, will it?
Lesley Sacks [:It will not.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay.
Lesley Sacks [:I promise.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay.
Lesley Sacks [:Not.
Sarah Peterson [:I promise too. So although we have no peer reviewed journal article to cite, having that conversation will not make them die sooner.
Lesley Sacks [:It doesn't.
Sarah Peterson [:What a relief.
Lesley Sacks [:It is. I know.
Sarah Peterson [:So why not?
Lesley Sacks [:Why not? And then it's just an easier conversation when the time does come that things are that are seriously happening. And, frankly, it makes it easier on everyone else.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:Not in the midst of a crisis to also have to deal with all kinds of unknowns that you've never spoken about before. It adds a level of stress that you can at least try to avoid, so I always recommend that as a source.
Sarah Peterson [:That's great. Thank you for sharing.
Lesley Sacks [:And, you know, obviously, we at Hopeful House try to be a resource for our community as well. We're here for people to have their dying time, but we also offer grief groups and a grief ritual, and that's open to public. So I always encourage people to see what other resources are in their area or available to them just to help them learn more. You don't have to have a loved one die here to participate in our grief groups
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. That's good to know.
Lesley Sacks [:Grief ritual, and I think the same is true for any community. There's going to be opportunities to connect with people who are doing work in this space. If you wanna learn more or think more about grief proactively, I guess, is the right way to say it, there's a lot out there, for resources. So I would always encourage people to look for those in their own community.
Sarah Peterson [:In my organization, Clear Morning, we do have an anticipatory grief group that
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:Goes on weekly, and it we keep threatening to end it. But the members love each other so much that there's just, like, no end in sight, which is fine. But I do feel like okay. So here's an example maybe of where we can push people. Because if they're actively coming to a group like that, I think they are signing up to say, push me a little.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:I can be pushed. Like, there's something there that says I'm voluntarily seeking your advice or your experience to guide me through this process. And so I really do use that. I mean, I don't always facilitate it. I have a colleague who facilitates it a lot too, but I push hard.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:And I don't feel as guilty about it in terms of, like, involuntary client versus voluntary because they're there, and they can sign out of the Zoom room, I guess, at any point.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:But allow the pushing to happen. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. What is your distress tolerance, and how can you increase it as a caregiver or as somebody who is watching somebody love or care about fade away or enter the dying process? Because it's going to happen. And the things that I think what Lesley and I are saying that you might miss out on should you spend your energy in denial, ask yourself if it's worth it.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. And I think to add, I would say that our staff and volunteers, in the most beautiful and kind ways, do push.
Sarah Peterson [:Do they?
Lesley Sacks [:I think they do it in a way that doesn't feel like pushing maybe, or they maybe the families don't even recognize that that's what's happening.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, just the walkout in front of everybody is a push.
Lesley Sacks [:It's a push. And just sort of sitting we have a lot of volunteers who love sitting and just getting to know families, sitting and talking, and then they ask questions and then it brings things out. And then all of a sudden, and we're doing that intentionally. Right. We're doing that because we know that these folks to release because they are experiencing so much anticipatory grief that they don't even realize it sometimes. So I do think we do that. The other thing that I forgot to add that we do as a ritual, which I think is another beautiful offering, and it's I guess it's not quite anticipatory because it's right at the moment of death, but we do invite all the families to participate in the washing of the body
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, wow.
Lesley Sacks [:And the rituals that are associated with that,
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Lesley Sacks [:if they want to. And many folks do, and they often tell us it was that experience was so meaningful for them in sort of that last bit of acceptance
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:Of just having an experience that's so connective in that way was very meaningful. Certainly, many people say, no, thank you, and that's okay too.
Sarah Peterson [:And that's okay too.
Lesley Sacks [:But, yeah, there's lots of opportunities, and I think that's the most important thing, is just continue to provide the opportunities, continue to have the space, and don't give up on them is what we do.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, I love that. Don't give up. Back to don't Sarah, don't use those words. Give up. Come on.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. Come on. Okay.
Sarah Peterson [:Unless we're saying this. Don't give up on them.
Lesley Sacks [:That's right.
Sarah Peterson [:Let's don't walk away. Because so often and you guys have heard me talk about this in other episodes as active griefers, but same with anticipatory griefers. They don't know what the heck they need. And the minute that you're like, well, I don't know what to do, the minute that that turns into I'm not gonna do anything, that's the spot where you're giving up on them. And so keep trying. Know that you're gonna screw up. Know that you might piss them off. Don't take it personally.
Lesley Sacks[:Right.
Sarah Peterson [:Just keep going.
Lesley Sacks [:Just keep going.
Sarah Peterson [:Just keep going.
Lesley Sacks [:Again, like, sometimes it's just getting them that bowl of soup and that cookie because they haven't eaten in twenty four hours.
Sarah Peterson [:Exactly.
Lesley Sacks [:We're coming from crazy caregiving situation at home, and they just haven't even realized that they haven't slept or whatever it is.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Lesley Sacks [:I mean, that that alone can be the start.
Sarah Peterson [:I remember one time telling somebody like, It seems like you need to go to the bathroom. She's like,
I need to go to the bathroom so bad. I'm like, why don't you go to the bathroom?
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:And even that was like, god. What?
Lesley Sacks [:I can do that?
Sarah Peterson [:I can do that?
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:It sometimes is so basic.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah. For sure.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, this was not basic.
Sarah Peterson [:Thankfully.
Sarah Peterson [:Thank you, Lesley.
Lesley Sacks [:No. This was so great.
Sarah Peterson [:Awesome to meet you.
Lesley Sacks [:So great to talk to you.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, same.
Lesley Sacks [:Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:I hope I can come back. And, honestly, everybody, I've waited over twenty years to come see Hopewell Health. So now we're gonna start our tour, and thank you so much for being here.
Lesley Sacks [:And I would welcome anybody to look up Hopewell. And if they're in the area, we're always open for tours and just get some more information.
Sarah Peterson [:Awesome. And you guys can be found. What's your email? What's your website?
Lesley Sacks [:It's hopewellhousepdx.org.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. And do you take donations?
Lesley Sacks [:Always.
Sarah Peterson [:Us too, guys. Us too. Us too. We always want donations.
Lesley Sacks [:Yes. I know. What you're doing is amazing.
Sarah Peterson [:well, thank you.
Lesley Sacks [:I'm really impressed. So thank you.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, thanks. It's been an honor. Take care.
Lesley Sacks [:You too.
Sarah Peterson [:Thank you for joining us on enduring grief, healing practices and true stories of living after loss. We hope today's conversation brought you comfort, understanding, or simply the assurance that you're not alone in your grief. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might need to hear it and subscribe as a way to stay connected. We'll be back next week with more personal stories and practical guidance for navigating the complexities of loss. Until then, take care of yourself and remember, there's no right or wrong way to grieve. You have the freedom to mourn in the way that feels true to you.
