07/28/2025
“My mom started hospice, they gave her morphine and she died.” I hear this often.
Based on my experience and all the years that I have worked in hospice, I feel confident in telling you that the morphine did not end their life, the diagnosis did. The disease process had already set its course long before the medication was given. I understand the fear, I honor and respect it. There is a heaviness in holding that syringe, in wondering if what you are doing is helping or harming. But in hospice, our role is not just to manage symptoms, it is to ease fear and bring clarity to uncertainty. That begins with education. Families deserve to know what might happen, what could happen, and what will happen, and to be reminded that they are not the cause of any of it.
One thing I tell every family is this: Can someone die after receiving morphine? Yes. But not because of it. These medications do not accelerate dying, they soften it. They reduce suffering, they calm the body, and in doing so, they allow the body to lean into what it was already trying to do, which is to let go. These medications create space for peace, for grace, and for breath to come a little easier, even in the end. Education doesn’t just explain that, it frees people from guilt that was never theirs to carry.
If we can meet people where they are, honoring their fears, their uncertainty, and their need to understand, we can offer them something far more powerful than just clinical support: we can offer them peace. When families are informed, when they feel seen and not judged, they can find steadiness in the midst of heartbreak. But if we fail to educate, if we dismiss their questions or move too fast, what we leave behind isn’t just confusion, it is a wound, a quiet guilt, and a lingering doubt that can stay with them long after their person is gone, adding unnecessary weight to their grief.
Compassionate education isn’t optional in this work, it is the very thing that can change how someone carries their loss for the rest of their life.
xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net
