08/04/2026
One of the places I meet the most resistance at the end of life is around the use of medications to relieve symptoms such as pain, agitation, or delirium. The medications I am referring to, are often morphine, lorazepam, or haloperidol, which are commonly included in the comfort or relief kit provided when someone begins hospice care. What families struggle with most is the fear that these medications may cause their person to sleep more, or become deeply sedated, and in doing so, take away the ability to have conversation.
I understand that fear. Communication at the end of life is sacred. People hold tightly to the hope of one more chance to hear their voice. I have sat at the bedside of someone I love, longing for one more word, knowing it wasn’t going to come. I struggle with this too. Wanting to keep someone as awake and cognitively present as possible comes from love.
What I have learned, though, is that when someone is dying and suffering, it can keep them from leaning into the dying process with the peace they deserve. Medications are not something I push or force. I don’t believe in taking choice away, and I never want families to carry regret or guilt into their grief. But I do believe deeply in education and support, and in helping families make peace with the fact that sometimes medication is exactly what allows suffering to soften.
What I often say in these moments is this: they might not be able to respond to you, but they can hear you. You may have already heard their last words, but they can still hear yours. I believe this with every ounce of my being. I witnessed it with my own brother who was non-responsive in the ICU. After sitting at his bedside for many days, saying all the things I had left unsaid over the years, apologizing again and again, he woke the day before he died and his last words to me were, “I’m sorry too.” He heard me.
Medications at the end of life are not what end someone’s life, their illness and the disease process do that. These medications simply allow them to die with more peace, more ease, and less suffering, and I truly believe that is something every human being deserves.
I am not here to convince you, I am here to sit with you. I want you to feel heard, and I want you to be able to make peace with a decision I know can feel heavy and complicated. I don’t want you to carry something forward that turns into an ache, wondering if you did the right thing, or if you waited too long.
My hope is to educate and support you in a way that allows you to make peace with this choice, to give medication, if it’s needed, without hesitation, and to trust that your presence matters, that your words are heard, that they are felt, and that they wrap gently around the person you love, offering comfort, safety, and permission to let go.
Be present. Speak your heart.
Let your love hold them, and let them go.
Trust that your care, your words, your presence, wraps them in the gentlest comfort. And know that in this act of love, you have done exactly what was needed.
xo
Gabby
You can find this blog here:
https://www.thehospiceheart.net/post/medications-at-the-end-of-life-a-gentle-conversation
