Gertie, EOL-doula ,death midwife

08/26/2025

I had a change to visit the memorial in PA for flight 93 this weekend .
As part of the exhibit you can listen to 3 phone calls recorded on voicemail from people on the plane to their loved ones.
You can hear Linda Gronlund , and part of her message is telling her family that her important papers are in the safe , where the safe icaan be found and what the combination is to get it open .
Do your loved once know where to find important documents if you are not able to tell them ?

08/19/2025

08/10/2025

Yesterday I visited a facility in our area I had never visited before and I was so happy seeing the beds they had . The picture that I posted is just an internet photo but it’s is similar.
A tradition hospital bed created a barrier between the person in the bed and the loved once around the bed as you can pretty much only stand at the bedside or pull up a chair . But these kind of beds , allow for so much more close contact if the patient can tolerate and wants it .
Imagine that you can just lay next to your husband for just a few more minutes , laying in the so familiar spot with your head resting on his/her chest , where you can lay and hold hands , whispering the things you like to say , for a mother or father , grandparents to allow a child to just clim up the bed and be there .
There might be more places around that have them but this just made me so happy

07/22/2025

Re-reading a book I read before and reading a new one to me . Continues learning never stops

07/15/2025

Who story is it to tell ?
I understand why our local hospice is providing their cena's with a company vehicle to go on home visits and how they use that vehicle to advertise and promote themselves in the community, just like some of the other hospice services are doing in the thumb but for me there is also the dilemma of protecting people's privacy.
I drove by a house this week where this car was parked and my first thought was " who needs hospice care in this family " and then my second thought was around privacy. By just having that car parked there it becomes very clear to everyone who goes by that someone in that household is sick and at least is exploring the option to sign up for hospice. Sometimes families are not ready to share that story or news with the outside world at the time they start up that service and even when I am a firm believer that we need to break the taboo around death and dying in this county by having more open talks about it , I also feel very strongly about protecting that wish till they are ready .

07/07/2025

Sometimes it seems there is a divine intervention going on that hard to explain and hard to ignore.
This morning I walked to the scale to get the haylage weights and as usual I have the USB stick dangling from its lanyard.
And out of the blue I hear Dave telling me" are you walking your invisible dog again ?" followed by his laughter. This is something he would ask me if he saw me walking outside .(Or he would ask if I lost my dog again )
It made me smile to remember this as Dave has passed away. But it also made me very emotional and I didn't understand why.
It was not till I realized the first anniversary of his death is coming up soon.
So maybe it is his way of reminding me to cross the road next week and check up on his family. And maybe it has nothing to do with it.
But one thing I know for sure, as long as we say ypur name Dave, you are not forgotten....
(posted with permission)

06/29/2025

A few weeks ago I was asked about my spiritual beliefs and I hesitated to answer as spiritually seems to be one of those hip words being use left or right to make you sign up for a yoga class in the woods or a drumcircke on the beach . But working for 2 days in my yard I realized it just a fancy word for surrounding yourself with things or actions that make you feel good or help you navigate the world we live in .
The Buddha statue: reminds me it’s ok to ponder, not know all the answers
The weathervane; try to find your true north
Jimmy: a reminder it’s ok to not work , to turn your back to the world and sit down with a book
The spiral ; we are all a small part in something bigger
Marie, Maria; my mom would visit her and light a candle every change she got and it soothes me knowing I can share all my joy and troubles with her
The water , the feel, the sound , the look

06/20/2025

Seems simple enough but it takes work to get in that mindset

06/19/2025

During the weekend I realized that a lot has changed for the better in how to deal with days like father day for those of us who lost a father. As I mentioned before my dad past away when I was very young and as a little girl I hated fathers day. I know hate is a strong word but I really did.
I can still remember the humiliation I felt when it was the time of year again at kindergarten and early elementary school to make a gift for father's day as I was the only kid in my class who did not have a dad.
The teacher didn't know what to do with me, so just like everyone else I had to color this card that had a cute little girl on the front and practice reciting a little poem praising dad. The teacher would glue a type copy of this poem to the back of the card, just in case you forgot the words by the time that sunday morning came along. And I had to make an ashtray from clay. We would add a rim to an oval little slab of clay and push two spots down with a finger to make a dent where the cigaret could rest. After the thing air dried for a week of so, we gotta paint it and take it home.
Or even worse, the teacher would send me to another class room while they would work on the father's day projects. I would walk into the other class and all the kids would look at my like I was a weirdo and it was my fault I didn't have a dad
In current days more kids grow up without a dad or have more as one. And I see that those kids are included to celebrate their family, no matter how it looks.
But still I encourage you to be thoughtful that those days can be hard on kids and adults alike.
It is ok to ask kids and adult if they are ok.
And thank God we don't have kids make ashtrays anymore, or do we?
(picture taken from the internet )

05/05/2025

I attended a zoom meeting about willow casket weaving and realized while googling afterwards that it is hard to source willow . So I ordered 120 willow cuttings that I planted last week and now they start getting little leaves. They will need to grow for 2-3 years before you can start cutting . In the meantime I am planning to attend a workshop on how to weave an egg basket and who knows what that ever leeds to

04/19/2025

During this week yearly performance of “ the passion” in the Netherland his song is sung when Mary and Jesus have to say goodbye. You can almost feel the raw emotion from Eva Simons who plays the role of Mary . What people didn’t know was that she recently had a miscarriage and that the lost is real . Grief shows itself in this beautiful performance.

👉 Kijk voor alle songteksten op: https://kro-ncrv.nl/programmas/the-passion/songteksten Wat een prachtig Jezus-Maria duet! Dorian Bindels (Jezus) en Eva Sim...

04/16/2025

Last night I attended a zoom social put on by NEDA, National End of Life Doula Alliance.
The home work assigment , that I missed by the way, was to write a whimsical, funny obituary about something you ever loved and lost , like a copy of your favorite book, a sock lost in the laundry. Hearing those obituaries written by others out loud change the discussion from being silly to a more serious topic as " who should write your obituary, you yourself or your loved ones . Or the funeral home just listing facts about your live ? Should you have both ?
One of the participants pushed it even further by asking herself and the group " are you living the live and showing up in life for others, as you would be remembered in a obituary ? Wow is that thought provoking . Gave me a lot to think about . How about you?
picture: JF Kennedy's obituary written by E.B.White for The New Yorker Magazine