Its My Life Box

01/13/2026

Profoundly true😔😌

When someone receives a terminal diagnosis, or begins to decline from age or illness, something devastating often happens quietly, beneath the surface: they begin to lose their autonomy. Suddenly, everyone around them is telling them what they should feel, how they should think, how to cope, how to fight, even how to die. Grief, hope, acceptance, these are deeply personal experiences, but they often get drowned out by well-meaning voices trying to make sense of it all. In the process, the person at the center of it, the one living it, is often silenced.

We must do better. We have to protect a person’s right to decide what this chapter of their life looks like, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. Their words, their wishes, and their boundaries matter up until their very last breath. Even if their choices don’t align with what we would want, they are still theirs to make. Dying is not something we get to do for someone else. What we can do is honor them with our presence, our listening, and our unwavering respect.

This is why conversation matters, real conversation. Talk to the people you love about what’s most important to them. Ask them what they want, how they feel, and what they fear. Be the person who listens in a way that makes them feel heard. And when they tell you, don’t rush to fix it or change it, just hold it. Carry their words like something sacred. Because in the end, the greatest act of love might not be saving someone, it might be showing up exactly as they have asked you to, even when your heart wants something different.

xo
Gabby

My book "The Conversation" can guide you toward having this difficult conversation.
You can find it here: https://a.co/d/9TUHqwL

01/07/2026

🤎

You can be buried in a woven basket, lowered gently into the earth, surrounded by flowers, soil, and the people who love you.... If you know what to ask for.

In natural and green burial, your family can help cover the grave if they choose.
Shovels passed hand to hand.
Quiet moments.
Petals scattered.
No rush. No machinery roaring in the background.

It can be deeply peaceful and even grounding to take part in the final care this way. Many families describe it as one of the most meaningful moments of the entire goodbye.

This is what death care can look like when we slow it down and let it be human again.

If you didn’t know this was an option, you’re not alone.
Most people aren’t told.

💬 Would you want your family involved in this part, or would you prefer a quiet witnessing?

12/28/2025

Wait…what!?😳

12/26/2025

♥️When I'm no longer with you
And you're looking out for me
I'll be waving from along that line
Where blue sky kisses sea

I'll be resting on the cloud that's shaped
Just like a bird that sings
And dancing through the puddles
That have fallen from its wings

I'll be knitting leaves for autumn
With pink blossom in my hair
Whilst sitting on a branch
That lifts me ten feet in the air

I'll be painting all the colours
When the sun begins to rise
And as it comes to set against
The dusky, evening skies

I'll be keeping a collection
Of a hundred billion lights
That I'll be stringing up above the clouds
As stars each night

So when you want to look for me
But don't know where I'm found
Just search the skies, the ocean
And the world that's all around

And look for how I've painted
All the colours of the sun
Look for how the stars all gather
When the day is done

Watch the clouds arrange and change
Themselves through different shapes
Feel the early morning,
Dawning sun upon your face

Watch the blossom from my hair
Appearing on the trees
Watch the rain fall softly
Like my knitted autumn leaves

Then dance through all the puddles,
Climb a branch that's ten-feet high
And wave to me along that line
Where blue sea kisses sky

*****

Becky Hemsley 2024
Beautiful artwork by Svetlana Aristova

This poem is in my new grief and loss collection: https://amzn.to/4iNo5XI
(affiliate link)

12/17/2025

Such an important topic - IMPORTANT to get it right for a GOOD DEATH🙏🏻💀

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

You might find my book “End of Life Tips” helpful. It is a guide for those at the bedside to be prepared for what could and might happen when someone is dying.
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Tips-Gabrielle-Elise-Jimenez/dp/B0C9G8PZZ5/ref=pd_aw_sim_m_sccl_2_4/130-2232800-4346236?

12/17/2025

“Aging, according to this research, isn’t a cause of death. It’s a condition that makes specific failures more likely. That’s a subtler, less cute story. It’s also harder to sell. But if scientists want to extend human life in meaningful ways, they may need to stop chasing immortality and start getting better at preventing the exact things that actually end it.”

"Dying of old age" sounds nice, right? Well, when scientists look at what really happened through autopsies, that sweet story unravels fast.

12/05/2025

Bravo 👏🏻🙌🏻

Linda Hamilton, 69, first broke out on the big screen in the 1984 sci-fi classic “Terminator.” Now, she’s headed back to that decade for her latest role as scientist Dr. Kay on “Stranger Things,” which is in its fifth and final season on Netflix.

A longtime fan of the show, the actress admits she was a bit intimidated at first to join the cast, saying, “When they invited me, I thought, 'Oh, they’re wrong. No, no, no...' There was a funny little disconnect for a minute. And then I was like, ‘Yippee!’”

Even with a busy schedule, she says she’s found "a great balance between work and life” in her later years. Part of that confidence and ease comes from not letting anything define her — including her age. “I don’t chase beauty, and I don’t chase longevity particularly,” she says. “I’m fully planted in the moment, but that doesn’t mean you don’t try to be healthy.”

Visit the link in the comments to read Hamilton's full interview with AARP's Movies for Grownups.