As an intensive care physician and pulmonologist at Saddleback Memorial in Laguna Hills, Dr. Espeleta must have the conversation with families about hospice and end-of-life issues. Hospice is comfort-focused care provided at home by a multidisciplinary team—doctor, nurse, social worker and spiritual care coordinator—for patients with life-changing diseases and their families.

Dr. Espeleta chooses to work with Hospice Care of the West because of their philosophy to keep patients on the same medications and collaborate seamlessly with the physicians to ensure their patients maintain and improve quality of life when they transition from the hospital to home.

He is on-call with a team of hospice medical directors around the clock, 24-7, to oversee medical care and work with the on-site nurses to provide pain relief for patients on hospice. He recommends hospice for patients wishing to spend their last days at home surrounded by family and friends rather than in a hospital connected to life support machines.

In the intensive care unit at the hospital, Dr. Espeleta often has to make split-second decisions to connect a patient to life support. These are the crisis moments when he has to speak to the family to find out what the patient’s wishes are because the patient can’t communicate. Dr. Espeleta says these decisions are often burdens to the family members in an already difficult hour.

The way we can prevent our families from making these kinds of decisions is to have conversations about our wishes with our families and doctors before the crisis. Do you want to be on a ventilator, or other life support measures? Read more about the kinds of questions that can guide you through these conversations. Do you want to spend your last days at home? Nine out 10 Americans say they want to be home surrounded by friends and family, yet so many patients take their last glances of life in the intensive care unit of hospital connected to machines. Check out advance directives here to record your healthcare decisions and give them to your family and doctors.

As Dr. Espeleta finds, most of his patients and their families want to take this journey at home and hospice is the best solution to make that last wish a reality.

At Our Reminiscing Corner, Jay Gianukos, a life-story documentary filmmaker, set up a video camera to record and preserve the stories of these social workers for hospice care. They work within a multi-disciplinary team at hospice to provide psychosocial support to the patient and family often in the midst of chaos as they confront the realities of a life-changing illness. End of life is not only a physical journey that must be cared for by the doctor and nurse, but we call on social workers to help translate and prepare for the social, mental and emotional experiences of life’s final frontier. These social workers light the darkness of life’s twilight, provide a map and plan for the days ahead in what often feels like unknown territory. Each day, they ask the kinds of questions that can yield insight for how last wishes can be transformed into a lived realities. With the support of the social worker, families extinguish fears and come together to create a sacred space around the bedside for sharing intimate, meaningful time reflecting on memorable times and hopes for the future.

They are our keepers of generational wisdom that was once held by our ancestors and passed down through our communal rituals around birth and death. Due to end of life occurring for over a century in institutions, families and communities have lost this wisdom. With the widespread acceptance of hospice care more people are spending their last days in the familiar comforts of family and community. Our social workers light the way to easy the transition and guide the family. These women are such a gift and resource to hospice patients and their families through the trying hours of end of life and bereavement. We would be lost without your guidance. Thank you for your wisdom and sharing some of the life experiences that shape how you transform the final stage of life for patients, families and communities.

My mother, Linda Carson, and me, Denise Carson, on a walk in Big Bear in the last year of her life.

In the Orange County Register, I reflected on some of the people who exemplify living richly in life’s final frontier. Read my Parting Ways Column below…

I was at a baby shower for my childhood friend last week when her mother-in-law, who is in her 70s, came up to me and said, “For lack of a better word, I feel envy for your Mom. You took such care to make her last days as good as possible.”
It is easy to pair envy with living, but not with dying.

Yet, I understood what she meant.

Cancer aside, my mother lived life her way until the moment of her very last breath at home surrounded by family and friends on Feb. 10, 2002. It’s the tenth anniversary of those last weeks of her life that inspired my book “Parting Ways” and this column. Both are a collection of stories that invite people to walk alongside individuals and families who have chosen not to spend their final hours alone in a hospital.
Though it was tough, we celebrated my mother’s 54th birthday on Jan. 9 at home, knowing it would be her last. Family and friends joined us. We surprised her with a group of praise-music singers and a guitarist, and it was a transcendent experience to sing “Amazing Grace” with a group of intimates in my living room. This beat sitting in a hospital waiting for her to die.
In her last week, friends and family gathered in our home to pay tribute to her life and collectively reminisce in what I now call a living wake. Since I know memories fade, I video-recorded her stories, lessons and wisdom. I purposely recorded her saying, “I love you, my love,” smiling and laughing.
Ten years later, those are the heirlooms I cherish most in her absence. We all have people in our lives who inspire us, touch us, mentor us, move us, and they live on as our examples even after death. My mother and all the individuals I’ve encountered while writing this column invigorated me. Their final journeys model how to walk clear-eyed into a stage of life that is fraught with fear for so many of us.
So, I want to pause as we enter a new year to reflect and say “You’ll be remembered.” They’ve sparked a connection within the community of readers and followers who send emails of gratitude and reminiscences about loved ones they’ve lost.
Bessie Anderson will be remembered in our community as the daring 105 year old who wanted to take a balloon ride at the Great Park. And did. I received a thank you card from Sheryl Villapania, her granddaughter, who shared that Bessie was thrilled to be in the newspaper. She even autographed copies for people in her community. She died just 10 days after the article was published. Imagine taking a hot air balloon ride in your last weeks of life.

I still get a buzz, as if I drank champagne, when I reflect on the three-hour receiving line at the living funeral of Dee J. Valentine, a World War II veteran, elder of his church and star in his retirement community Costa del Sol. He didn’t let going into hospice stop him from celebrating his 100 years of life with 200 friends and family from across the country. He reveled in the reunions and embraces. His advice to me about longevity was: “You have to live for the future…even today I look forward to growing and make life better for others.”

at White, 89, of Mission Viejo, holds a 1925 photo of her mom, Helen, and herself, both wearing fur coats. She grew up in the Shelton Gang in Illinois. After school at Long Beach Poly Tech, she'd water taxi to her uncle's ship, a floating casino, three miles offshore of Long Beach, where she'd play roulette and eat dinner on board. CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

He continues to grow and live! Hospice wasn’t about a death sentence for Dee J. It was about finding the kind of care to enable him to keep living independently at home among his family and community. Though the doctor has to say the patient has six months or less to live to receive hospice, Dee J. has lived on hospice for one year. He didn’t want to be institutionalized. His family is making that last wish a reality for him. My hope is one day these kinds of stories will drown out those in our community of parting ways with our aging loved ones in a cold, isolated institution.

Pat White will forever be a legend to me. I believe we must sit down with our family members to video-record their history, because you never know what could be living in the past of your grandmother or grandfather. I’ll never forget being transported to the underworld of prohibition told through the riveting reflections of 89-year-old Pat who grew up in a gangster family that “ran East Louis and Southern Illinois, the way Al Capone ran Chicago.” She told these stories for the first time and had almost carried them to the grave. That would have been a shame. Today, her zest and tales will be continue in her family lore but now also reside in our collective memory.
In my book “Parting Ways,” Elizabeth Vega, a journalist turned life-review guide for hospice patients, shared her belief passed down from the Aztecs that we die three deaths. The first death occurs when your body exhales the last breath and the heart stops beating. The second death is marked when your body is lowered into the ground, returned to the elements of Mother Earth and slips from the sight of the living. The most definitive of the three is when your memory vanishes and there is no one left to remember you.
I invite you to send in a photograph of someone you’ve loved and lost. Share with me a story of an individual who has set an example for you or recall a cherished moment that will live on in your memory. Our collective memory can help us challenge the third death. We might not be able to achieve immortality for our loved ones, but I can be sure that even 10 years after they die, their lives guide our tomorrows and even garner the envy of others.

Our conversation is timely and important at this stage in America’s history when thousands of baby boomers are dealing with these issues and in search of new ways to approach this stage of life.We discussed the changing attitudes that have fueled the wider acceptance of hospice and growing specialty of palliative care in hospitals that have enabled families and communities to be more involved and clear-eyed in life’s last chapter. I shared my personal experiences losing my parents who were cultural markers for these changes. In the late 1980s, my father’s cancer was veiled in denial that led to him to dying, alone, in a hospital while my mother’s cancer prognosis at the turn of the 21^st Century was the opposite. My mom had one of those end-of-life experiences at home surrounded by friends and family who came in her last week to celebrate her much in way you would at wake. Check out my most recent OC Register Column about our experience.

I talked about the commonality of hospice in all the families I report on. We discussed my experiences sitting bedside with patients at Hospice Care of the West. These patients were interviewed in life review to video record the stories of their lives to pass on to the next generation. I’m convinced video recording a life review interview better prepare the individual, family and community for end of life. This should be a cornerstone in the psychosocial care of a patient and family in hospice.

My hope is one day all the stories I write about here on Celebration2life.com, my column Parting Ways in the OC Register and my book Parting Ways will one day be the norm and not the exception.

Gemma Heffernan, Social Worker for Hospice Care of the West

In the early 1980s, Gemma Heffernan greeted an elderly couple entering her office at Leisure World. As the Director of Social Services, she often met with seniors to discuss their special needs.

As they walked in and sat down, the husband took off his Captain’s cap. He hung his head while his wife talked about him as if he wasn’t there. He didn’t say a word. She discussed his dementia and their life before the crisis. He was a professor and a doctor. They travelled all over the world to lecture for large audiences that sought his knowledge.

As the conversation came to a close, Gemma said,

“Thank you so much doctor, appreciate all you’ve done.”

The husband stood and looked up at Gemma for the first time and then bowed.

“Thank you, it’s been a pleasure,” he said.

Gemma instantly recognized a total transformation in his demeanor. In a split second, he was transported to a time when he was giving his lectures and people would come out to acknowledge him as doctor and celebrate his contributions.

At that moment, she made a realization.

“It was a change in the stature and behavior of the man that just hit me,” she said. “I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, I have to remember this, to always go back to the part of their life where they were celebrated.’”

This wisdom guides her as she sits bedside with patients at Hospice Care of the West. Out of the more than 60 hospices in Orange County, she chose to work for Hospice Care of the West because of their philosophy of care to celebrate every life and story of their patients. This choice has brought her full circle in a distinguished career, devoted to the advocacy and service of seniors, which began as a social worker in hospice and home health at Saddleback Hospital.

Gemma emigrated with her husband and two sons from Ireland to live in America during the late 1960s. Her husband started work at MGM Studios. She dreamed of becoming an elementary school teacher, but a downturn in demand for teachers changed her course to help folks on the other side of life. As she completed her Masters degree at University of Southern California, she started as social worker helping families deal with crisis of terminal illness.

At that time, the hospice movement was in its infancy. Many families and physicians felt that hospice was just a deathwatch for the patient. This was tough.  After witnessing the first deaths of her patients, she realized they were wrong.

Hospice was about the continuity of life—this realization came as she planted a garden in her new San Juan Capistrano home. She listened to Mozart and Beethoven and realized that they lived on through the music they left behind. It was then she changed her focus to fortifying the family through the crisis to give the best care to their mother or father, while ensuring that the family was still standing and continue on after the death.

She listens to the families and helps those members in acute distress or suffering from anxiety because they’re not ready to let the loved one go. Often times, she connected families to services communal, psychosocial, spiritual, financial, veteran affairs, bereavement and funeral that ease the journey into end of life for all involved.

Some folks she helps connect with old acquaintances or family members to make amends or come to a reckoning with unfinished business. This holistic approach of sorting through issues helps patients and the families prepare for and find peace in the final hours of life.

As she watched the continuum of life in her blooming garden and listened to music, she often thought of her grandmother who raised her and introduced her to music in Ireland. She had to leave behind her grandmother when she came to America. Gemma was not able to care for her “Nana” in the end of her life. Gemma’s devotion and reverence for seniors is motivated by her grandmother. After 10 years in hospice and home health, she moved to Leisure World.

As Social Services Director at Leisure World in the late 1990s, she started a nonprofit organization called the Leisure World Foundation now renamed the Laguna Woods Foundation to provide seniors with assistance for transportation to and from doctor appointments, Meals On Wheels or anything that they had to pay for out of their own pockets such as a water heater for the home or services Medicare couldn’t pay for. Prior to the foundation, she and other social workers would use their own money to help seniors. The foundation that she is so proud of has become the largest donor to South County seniors. At Leisure World, she also had her own television show on Channel 6 that focused on senior issues.

In a way, her “Nana” lives on through her mission to help seniors in need.

Now at Hospice Care of the West, she continues to educate the community that hospice is about continuity of life. Though she may not have become an elementary school teacher, Gemma is a wise educator. As she reflects on her journey that led her back to hospice, the most satisfying moments of her career have been serving patients and their families. Often the nurses in hospice are focused on the physical needs of their patients. As a social worker, Gemma is able to step in at the bedside to just listen.

“I’ve met the most astonishing people,” Gemma said. “And, they always love to tell their story.”

She recalled recently sitting at the bedside of Mary Burchard, a World War II female pilot. Gemma read parts of Mary’s story captured in her life review video that was written about in the OC Register. Mary was bright and full of zest listening intently to her life story being read to her. Then Gemma said to Mary,

“You’re an inspiration, you’re a trailblazer, you did this at a time when women weren’t doing things like this. Anything we’ve accomplished we’ve done it on the shoulders of giants. You’re one of them.”

Mary smiled.

“Did you know I was a doctor too?” Mary said.

“Yes, I know and you left it all to serve your country,” Gemma said

In that instant, Gemma lifted Mary’s spirit. She transcended the dementia and beamed with glory.

“Alright everyone,” said Donna Miller, a hospice practitioner, drawing the attention of John’s family. As the clock ticked loudly toward John’s eleventh hour, Donna, founder of the life review video program at Hospice Care of the West, raced against time to rescue and record John’s life story, in his own voice, to leave as a parting gift to his family and future generations. He battled lung cancer and Alzheimer’s disease like a bull and lived beyond his physician’s prognosis.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

A trailer of highlight clips from John Marting’s Life Review Interview Video filmed and edited by a volunteer high school teacher and his students for Hospice Care of the West to gift to the Marting family.

She craned over to view the monitor atop a digital video camera on a tripod operated by the cameraman, Robert, a 54 year-old high school teacher and hospice volunteer. She gave him the

Donna Miller, Founder of the Life Review Video Program and Director of Volunteer Services at Hospice Care of the West

cue. He hit record.

On the screen, John sat against a backdrop of his prized possessions—framed pictures of his sons, Larry and Richard at their college graduations, now both are in their mid-50s, and his 50^th wedding anniversary picture with his wife. His face animated to a smile radiating his laugh lines, whiting temples and creases on his baldhead, when his daughter-in-law approached him.

“You’re a movie star today Dad,” she said upon embracing John.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re a superstar to us everyday. We love you Dad,” his daughter-in-law said.

His wife Marjorie, a petite woman exuding a regal presence, sashayed up to John and pursed her lips together. She was a year his junior. They sweetly kissed each other and she said in a soft voice, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” John beamed up at Marjorie and then turned to the camera. “I’m glad I married this woman.”

Richard, John’s youngest son standing 6’4 lent down to noticeably relish a long embrace. Larry, a brawn rugged guy, gingerly approached his father. Instead of hugging, they sort of awkwardly rubbed cheeks. John’s grandson, 21-year-old Dan Marting, swooped in and whispered, “I love you grandpa” and hugged him. Richard lived nearby in Newport Beach, but Larry’s family drove more than 100 miles to participate in this unique event.

John carefully took long gazes at each of his family members and surprisingly remarked, “I’ve never felt so much warmth and love in this room.”

He was right, the warmth and love was palpable, and often is after the parade of affection that Donna suggests at the opening of every life review video. It melts the tension.

“Are you ready John?” Donna asked.

“Yeah,” he said with a big grin. “I don’t have any secrets, so go ahead.”

“Well, if you have secrets, they might make this even better,” she said.

Before Donna started, she invited the family to jump in and ask questions upon inspiration then she led John on a reminiscing tour of his life starting with his birth and boyhood in Missouri. He spoke fondly of his mother, a homemaker, and his father, a General Electric salesman. John vividly recalled his initiation into manhood that followed the Pearl Harbor bombing when he lined up with hundreds of young men at the enlistment in St. Louis, Missouri.  He started to doze a bit during the interview, so Robert suggested Marjorie join him to talk about the magical moment when they met at her sister’s wedding. He was the best man and she was the maid of honor. Shortly, after they married on a foggy night, at a small church without a center aisle.

“Where was your first home?” Donna asked.

“Parking Lot C for LAX now,” Marjorie said. “It was a tiny Marlow Burns tract house that we paid $3,700.”

John and Marjorie held hands as they reminisced about the births of Larry and Richard born 21 months apart. Marjorie sent them off to pre-school and she went back to school to get her master’s degree. She became a high school teacher and then assistant principal at Van Nuys High School. They were Little League parents. Their early life led into his career as a draftsman for General Petroleum, which eventually became Mobile Oil. Then Donna turned the interview back toward home and leisure.

“John do you have any hobbies?” Donna asked.

“Well how would you say it, family” John replied. “Yep, that pretty much sums it up.”

“What about gardening?” Marjorie added.

“That’s not a hobby,” John grinned

The family collectively reminisced about holidays, traditions and family vacations. They spoke about their sons growing up and eventually leaving home to go off to college. Donna then turned the life review toward retirement and life reflections.

“So looking back on your life do you have any regrets?” Donna asked.

John sat back in the chair as all his family members leaned in. He closed his eyes to ponder the question.

“I didn’t follow through on my goal,” John said.

“What goal?” Marjorie asked with a look of puzzlement.

“Following up on my education. Of course, the biggest obstacle was money,” John said.

“John, is there anything you want your family to know? “ Donna asked.

His family patiently waited. For a man short on words, shorter on compliments, finding the voice to express what lay heavy on his heart was challenging. He expressed his love in action, not in words. He taught his sons by example not with long-winded speeches about morals and values. Just sitting back and observing their father’s actions taught them how to be a good man, a good father.

John closed his eyes for so long that Donna thought he’d fallen asleep.

“John,” she said.

“Well, I’m just glad they put up with me, I hope I was a good father because that’s what’s important to me,” he said. “I’m proud of our family, you’ve all done well and I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

At that moment the room was silent with the exception of sniffles. Robert looked up from his camera to wipe his own glistening eyes. He turned the camera to pan the room for the family to express their feelings.

Through a misty gaze at his father, Larry said, “It’s been really interesting to listen to what you have to say, I heard a lot of new things today, my respect for you and my love for you just grows.”

Donna watched the Marting family console one another in long embraces and Robert turned off the camera. Donna never could predict what might transpire during a two-half hour interview but gathering the family together at the end usually pushed heartfelt emotions to the surface. That’s really her goal to create an opportunity for her patient to share his or her life story but also for the family to sit, listen and respond. The video camera and interview helps everyone to focus on the present reality. It’s hard to avoid your father dying when he’s expressing his last words in a filmed interview for posterity.

Robert and Donna talked with Marjorie and John about their favorite music. Robert collected photographs of John’s life from the family. The raw video footage and photographs would now return to Robert’s classroom at Laurel High School where his students would help him edit the video.

The Making of a Life Movie

A few years ago, I answered an ad for a life review interviewer on Volunteermatch.com that led me to Donna Miller, now the director of volunteer services at Hospice Care of the West. I was interested in writing about her life review videos for my forthcoming book, Parting Ways. I leaned how as a volunteer, a friendly visitor at the bedside, she had spent hours listening to hospice patients reviewing their past lives and thought how valuable these precious pieces of family history would be for their children and grandchildren. Finally one day in autumn of 2005, she decided to ask one of her patients if he would be interested in recording his stories on a video camera in a life review interview to pass on to his daughters as a gift. His daughters joined him on the interview as he embarked on a fascinating journey retracing his life guided by Donna’s list of questions to trigger reflections from his birth to the present.

Donna had cared for her own in-laws in her home at the end of their lives, but became so wrapped up in their physical care, she missed sitting down and recording their life stories. With their last breaths went generations of family history. She knew from personal and professional experience that families tied up with the rigors of terminal illnesses were too busy to do this themselves but open and grateful for Donna to come in and record one last conversation with their matriarch or patriarch. Shortly before I met Donna, she had connected with Robert Ostmann, high school teacher, at Laurel High School in Los Alamitos. She needed a volunteer video editor to marry the interviews with music and pictures that gave visual images to the stories shared in the interview. Robert and his students became her video editors and they called these classroom projects “life movies.” They now give these videos as gifts to the families all produced with volunteered time and skills.

Andy Rooney once said, “The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.”  I decided to visit Robert and his students to see how they turned the interview into what they called “life movies” a documentary-style video with music and photos melded seamlessly together with the raw edited interview. At 9:01 a.m. the first bell rang at Laurel High School in Los Alamitos and the students poured through the doors of Mr. Ostmann’s classroom, which looked more like a buzzing television newsroom stacked wall to wall with computers stations, video editing equipment and video cameras.

They worked diligently flipping through family photo albums and scanning photos into the computer. Others listened to life review interviews and cut them into clips to assemble on a story timeline in Final Cut Pro, a video-editing software program. On the computer screen, one man talked about what Los Angeles looked like with dirt roads and rumbling Model-Ts, how gas was only a nickel and the sound of high rises being built. A student commented on his project saying it was “like a California history lesson from orange groves to high rises.” Mr. Ostmann was proud of his observation because that’s one of his hopes in bringing these video projects into the classroom to teach the students about history, the building blocks of a story and how to find a narrative line. After they cut the video into clips grouped in different time periods and then they are challenged with assembling those video clips into a coherent narrative complemented by pictures and lastly music.

John Maxwell, a high school student, edits a life review interview video of a hospice patient with pictures and music to produce a "life movie" during video production class at Los Alamitos High School. His teacher, Robert Ostmann, is a volunteer for Hospice Care of the West, and uses these life review videos as a teaching tool for his students. The life review videos are created with volunteer time and skills to give as a gift to the family of the patients at Hospice Care of the West.

Mr. Ostmann uses the videos as a teaching tool about life progression—showing the students how these people’s lives develop from playing as kids in school, growing into young single adults starting careers or going off to war, taking on the responsibility of nurturing a family, being a good parent, building a home, dealing with the reality of crises and illness.

The Premiere of the Life Movie

Twelve days after the interview, John took his last breath in the familiar comfort of home and family. His daughter-in-law called Donna to ask if it was possible to have the video to play at John’s funeral. Robert Ostmann said it would be a squeeze but he and the students could probably pull it off.

The following Saturday morning, just over a 100 people filled the pews at Creekside Christian Fellowship in Irvine. After the dozen tributes, the lights dimmed, John appeared on a four-foot by four-foot screen at the front of the sanctuary to complete the portrait everyone tried so desperately to recreate of him. The song “I will remember you” by Sarah McLachlan played as a larger than life still photo of John smiling at his 50^th Wedding Anniversary illuminated the silver screen at the front of the church. The still photo faded to black and John appeared on screen to introduce himself looking dapper at home.

John tells stories of his birth, birthplace and childhood complemented by a black and white baby picture of him in a sailor suit followed by a picture of John at 3 years old next to his tricycle in the front yard in Missouri. Photos of John on his father’s shoulders and holding on to his mother’s hand strolled across the screen to the faint hymn of “Amazing Grace”.

On screen Donna asked, “What kind of child were you?”

John said, “small.”

The laughter of his family on screen joined the audience laugher in the sanctuary. As John spoke about his years going off to war, images of the young marine, bent on one knee and lying down on his belly aiming his rifle, shot across the screen.  A close up of John and Marjorie’s hands folded into one another came into focus as the song “Daisy Bell” and the lyrics he always sang to her “A Bicycle Built for Two” played. Marjorie narrated their love story.

“We were thrown together,” she smiled and then squeezed John’s hand.

Marjorie and John’s commentary enlivened the medley of still photos of their courtship, wedding and early years of parenthood. They sat on the front porch of their first home, held the hands of their sons while hiking on camping trips in Yosemite. As the documentary came to a close, John rested his head back in the chair and then leaned forward as if talking directly to the audience and said, “Looking back, I think I’ve done pretty well.”

His words were marked by the family bathing him in love and affection followed by a slideshow harmonized by the Beatles song, “In My Life: There are places I Remember,” sang by Judy Collins. At the end of the slide show a black screen darkened the sanctuary and Donna’s voice could be heard saying, “Hey John”, “Hey John”.

The dark sanctuary was once more illuminated by John popping up his head from a blissful doze on screen and his voice exclaimed, “I’m just resting my eyes,” followed by his familiar guttural belly laugh. The audience laughed along with John and then stood for an ovation as the credits rolled. It was spectacular.

Tears of joy slid out of Donna’s eyes. “That was amazing,” she whispered under her breath.

The pastor took the stage and was noticeably breath taken by the video.

“Wow, that was remarkable,” he said. “I don’t know if you all were thinking about what I was thinking but I have to ask, “Are we really saying the things we need to say to those we love? Are we leading the lives that we’d be proud of if we were in John’s shoes being asked these questions at the end of life?”

After the service, Larry approached Donna in a long embrace.            

“Thank you…your timing was perfect, we said the things we needed to say and heard the things we needed to hear at the right time,” Larry said. In that moment of loss the family gained. They gained John’s life story told through his reflections and not hand-me down stories. People came up to the Marting family to give their condolences but also to express their awe over such a wonderfully told life story.
“I really felt like I got to know John,” one woman said.

“This was the best service, I’ve ever been to,” said one man and everyone crowded around agreed.

“It beautifully captured everything great about John his smile, his humor and his love for family,” another man said.

Richard and his family gathered around Donna to again express their gratitude.

“His voice and his life story will be forever preserved,” Richard said hugging Donna and almost sweeping her off her feet. “Thank you so much. Years from now his grandchildren will be able to meet and learn about their Great Great Grandfather John Marting and the incredible life he led.”

Students Receive Recognition and Awards

A couple months later, the Los Alamitos School Board invited Robert and his students to be recognized for their devotion to hospice patients and their families. Before the ceremony, they gathered with Donna and the Marting family for dinner to celebrate. The Marting family spoke of how the video was the highlight of the memorial service. Richard watched the video a few times after the funeral and recapped his thoughts.

“In your mind you remember things from the past, you can look at still pictures,” he said. “But having the video, it’s like he’s right here, since it’s a conversation that we were involved in, it’s not an 8 milometer-home movie of him pushing us on our bikes from years ago. It was so close to the end so it has real poignant meaning for us.”

At the school board meeting, Robert introduced a sampler video that included the interview with John. The students rose for their honors and John Maxwell, stood like a director on Oscar night, to accept the certificate and standing ovation. Then, Richard Marting took the microphone.

“Excuse me for my misty eyes,” Richard said. “We really wanted to come and give our thanks publicly to Robert Ostmann and his students for creating this life video of my father…The video taped interview provided us with a chance to turn the light on him, focus and listen to our father recollect 61 years of marriage and raising a family. We were able to learn about his greatest joys and regrets. When he was asked ‘What are you most proud of in your life?’ It was the first time I ever heard him say ‘family’. When he was asked ‘what was your greatest regret?” I’d never thought to ask him this, so having this forum really taught us something as well. His response was that he never went to college…I’m sure Robert’s students learned a lot of technical skills from this process and walked away with a sense of accomplish that all of us receive when we finish a project, but I also hope that they took away a greater understanding of family and the love of a father and that’s such a lesson that would make my dad proud.”

Excerpt on Life Review Video from the recently released book Parting Ways: The New Rituals and Celebration of Life’s Passing- by Denise Carson

On Mom's last Christmas, we recreated all the nostalgic sights, sounds and smells of her childhood memories in England. It felt like a Charles Dickens' Christmas. We burst open Christmas "crackers," boxed party favors, and topped it off with Christmas pudding, a traditional English dessert.

As the holidays approached, I opened the kitchen cupboard and pulled out the green box holding all my mother’s holiday recipes. I carried it like you might carry the family jewels into her bedroom where she lay on a hospital bed.
We’d learned before Halloween that the chemotherapy stopped working, and the IV keeping her alive could be discontinued when she chose to go into hospice.
On the last Christmas shared with our Mom, my brother, Ryan Carson, 19 years old, cooked a traditional English roast to evoke the scents of English Christmas past for our Mom. When I interviewed Mom, the day after, she said, “Having Ryan do the cooking, that was something special.” She was truly proud of him.

Since my younger brother and I knew the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas would be the last with our mother, Linda Carson, we wanted them to be special. Our holiday festivities usually revolve around the dinner table, but my mother couldn’t eat because the cancer had blocked her intestines.
I sat on the edge of her bed and pushed the green box toward her.
“What are you doing with that?” Mom asked.
“You’ll have to teach me how to make Thanksgiving dinner this year,” I said.
She opened the box and smiled proudly. At 26, I finally realized that traditions had the power to link generations and bond families together after a death.
On Thanksgiving morning, Mom became the director of the show. As the producer, I learned the secrets, shortcuts and addenda to her recipes. Dinner turned out just like Mom’s. Usually Mom said the prayer. On impulse, I did it.
After, I suggested we each share two things we were thankful for so that eating wasn’t the only activity at the table.
I began to feel a changing of the guard.
Usually during the first weeks of advent, Mom got the decorations from the garage, collected our Christmas lists, opened the advent calendars and transformed our home into a luminescent winter wonderland. She played carols, read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and the Nativity story. I could hardly fathom Christmas without her.
I needed to know the roots of these traditions. We talked about her fondest memories in England — waking up Christmas morning to the sound of wrapping paper rustling in a stocking at the foot of her bed.
I was struck when Mom said that most of the advent traditions I’d grown accustomed to started after my parents divorce when I was 7, my brother’s first Christmas. It dawned on me that the magic of Christmas was born of my mother’s attempt to deflect her grief and my father’s absence.

Reflections of Christmas past, my Mom, Linda Carson, my brother, Ryan Carson, and me in 1983 on the first advent after my parents' divorce when Mom began to transform our home into a winter wonderland during the advent season and created the family traditions that live on today, even in her absence.

“I began to cling onto traditions much more once my life was brought to a standstill after the divorce,” Mom said. “I tried not to focus on the emptiness, the bleakness.”
After our talk, I had the inspiration to turn our darkness into a joyous celebration, just like Mom did. I retrieved the boxes of decorations. Mom gave me the address of the tree lot we’d gone to since I was a child. Since I love a Noble fir and she loves a Douglas fir, each year we traded off. I found a hybrid tree — a cross between a Noble and a Douglas. It was the perfect tree to canonize this last Christmas.
I invited Mom to join me as I decorated. At first she resisted, but with some cajoling and the help of morphine for her pain, I helped her down the stairs. As I placed ornaments on the tree, she shared the story of each one.
On Christmas morning, Mom woke up to the crackle of gifts in a stocking at the foot of her bed. She followed the sounds of clanging pans that grew louder as she descended the stairs. Her eyes widened at the sparkling lights in living room. The “Christmas Song” played as she turned toward the clatter and gasped. Ryan, my then 19-year-old brother, whirled around the kitchen preparing all the dishes to accompany the roast, decorated in fresh herbs and painted in English mustard.
At the dinner table, we burst open Christmas crackers, an English tradition that Mom had reminisced about. Loud bangs triggered an explosion of wrapping paper, cardboard, and toys spraying across the table. We slipped on our silly crepe-paper crowns. Then I asked each person to share a Christmas memory. I started.
“I’d have to say waking up at dawn every Christmas to the crackling of wrapping paper and gifts in my stocking at the foot of my bed is by far my favorite memory,” I said.
“I agree,” Ryan said.
We toasted Mom, followed by dessert — English bird’s-eye custard and Christmas pudding.
The next morning when I woke up, Mom called me into her bedroom.
“Denise, I want you to come in here with your tape recorder,” she said.
This is what she said, “Usually I am the one who plans everything and does everything, and this time…my daughter, from November on, was rushing here and there buying gifts, wrapping gifts and planning the food…Everything I would normally do, she did it and did it with style… Having Ryan do the cooking, that was something special.”
She proudly recounted his exquisite culinary creations.
“Well, I just wanted to get that down so we wouldn’t forget, because it was so special.”
My mother passed away in 2002 about six weeks after that memorable Christmas. For my brother and me, advent continues to be a special time when her spirit lives on in each ornament hung on the tree, the twinkling decorations turning my home into a winter wonderland and the Christmas crackers we burst at the dinner table.
I can almost hear her voice in the Christmas carols we play and when I read “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” to my 2-year old daughter. I believe Santa Claus will be leaving a stocking full of gifts at the foot of the bed for her.

Celebrate last holidays
• Find out which holiday traditions are meaningful to your loved one.
• Let your loved one know you will carry on special traditions and stories to the next generation.
• Ask your loved one to coach you on family recipes.
• Invite family and friends to bring a memory to share.
• Encourage people to share, e.g. making a wish for the person next to him.
• Bring new traditions that will honor your loved one.

Denise Carson, blog author, and Debbie Robson, Executive Director of Hospice Care of the West, at Channel 6 News.

Rob Merritt, the news anchor for Channel 6 in Orange County, turned the spotlight on Our Celebration to Life Blog and Hospice Care of the West to give his audience resources and tips for approaching the end of life journey and grief during the holidays.

He introduced two special guests to share our story. Hospice social worker, Gemma Hefferman, shares how the mission of celebrating life at Hospice Care of the West transforms their patient and family experiences from fear to joy, peace and comfort on hospice. Debbie Robson, Executive Director of Hospice Care of the West, joins the conversation on the Channel 6 News to share some of the special programs such Our Celebration to Life blog that invites the community to join the conversation and add comments to the stories and information shared online. She also talks about  We Honor Veterans and the Life Review Video that guide patients to reflect on their defining life experiences. These unique services of Hospice Care of the West have helped the hospice team to be more sensitive and personalize their care of veterans and their families.

We interviewed Richard Marting, the son of John Marting, a World War II veteran who epitomized the Greatest Generation. John valued his wife Marjorie of 61 years, being a good father to his two sons and serving his country at war. In the interview with Richard, we discovered the life review video was the greatest gift to his family because John tells his story in his own words. The interview brought three generations of the Marting family together to listen to their patriarch. When Richard watches that video, he feels close to his father again.

In the second commercial, we interview Susan Mullins, the remarkable daughter of Mary Burchard, reflecting on the life review interview. Susan says the recorded interview was the most wonderful time spent listening to her mother telling stories. Mary relives her piloting military aircraft in the clouds above America during World War II. Susan and her sister, Eileen McDargh, loved reminiscing in the sun with their mother. Though memories unfortunately fade with time, this life review video preserves Mary’s voice, her laugh, her smile and her extraordinary life journey that will now be passed down now from generation to generation.

The life review program is the brainchild of Donna Miller, Director of Volunteer Services at Hospice Care of the West. She creates these magical moments for families to come together and reminisce at a time when they’re feeling wrenched apart. These life review videos help the hospice patient and their family to pause and remember the good times they’ve shared together. For the children of hospice patients to be able to say that they’ve enjoyed this time with their parents in hospice is a tribute to our mission here at Our Celebration to Life.

To produce these authentic interviews with the children of hospice patients, we called on award-wining documentary filmmaker, Jay Gianukos, who has spent more than a decade filming life stories for families. Hospice Care of the West is the only hospice sitting down with their patients to video record precious life stories to pass on to their families.

These commercials are currently airing on Channel 6 in South Orange County. We hope the commercial series will help people understand the value of recording a legacy of memories for their families, especially at the end of life. Hospice Care of the West is a compass and guide on the end of life journey for these families. It’s not easy when you have to become a parent to your parent. But the life review video helped both of these children to remember the extraordinary lives their parents led even in their most fragile and vulnerable hour of life. Susan helps us all to realize that hospice and the life review video wasn’t just a gift for her mother, but also for their entire family.

The following day, I opened my presentation by inviting each of them to light a candle because that is an old ritual used to help people reflect in the past and then I explained that I would now introduce them to some new modern day rituals that draw on technology to help us preserve those reflections. And more importantly, show them the power in sharing those life reflections with our family and community. Each of them received my book, Parting Ways: New Rituals and Celebrations of Life’s Passing, that explores how families and communities are reinventing their roles with new rituals that bring intimacy, preparation and celebration to a stage of life that’s been alienated.
I discovered both in my own experiences losing my parents to cancer and later visiting with families from the East to West Coasts that hospice care and the life review interview that records one’s personal history can transform the personal experience of end of life.

Debbie Robson, Executive Director of Hospice Care of the West, and Denise Carson, author of Parting Ways, at a presentation for Skilled Healthcare in Las Vegas. Photo by Jay Gianukos

In Chapter 6 of my book, I follow Donna Miller, the founder of the life review video program and Director of Volunteer Services of Hospice Care of the West. She visits the bedside of hospice patients and records a last interview that is edited with music and pictures. Patients then give these life review videos as gifts to their families. We’ve found that one of the biggest assaults on one’s dignity at the end of life is that nothing of who or what I am will live on after I die. These life review videos not only preserve one’s dignity but also one’s life history. That is why we asked these hospice executives to take a moment to experience recording a life review interview. Debbie Robson, Executive Director at Hospice Care of the West, joined us at the Reminiscing Corner, and talked about her greatest life achievement was going back to college to get a nursing degree and how that empowered her to be able to take care of her family. She then reflected on how her mother’s recent passing and her regret of not sitting down to record a life review with her.

After excerpts from the interviews played on the silver screen, we asked them to discuss what it felt like to now have a piece of their life history preserved. Shane Peck, President of Skilled Healthcare, shared his inspiration of having his children interview their grandparents to video record their life stories for posterity. Blaine Whitson reflected on his desire to go home and record the stories of his life for his children. We also gave them a notebook full of life review questions that they could use for themselves or their patients.

In the end, we all are capable of making people comfortable and pain free in hospice care, but there is something else we can do for our patients that helps transport them even if it’s for a brief moment out of their current condition in life to reflect on a better time. If we listen and record their stories, patients will have dignity in knowing they will live on in the minds and hearts of their loved ones. Sharing their story radiates from within and by asking them questions that spark life review we are comforting them from the inside.