WVMC Palliative and Hospice Care Program

01/01/2026

As this year comes to a close, I am not interested in resolutions or reinvention. I am interested in this moment, the one we are standing in right now. In the things we know we need to say, the changes we know we are ready to make, and the gentle courage it takes to stop waiting.

At the end of each day, I ask myself three questions:
What did I do well?
What could I have done differently?
And what did I learn?
Not as judgment, but as care. Because when we notice, when we learn, we loosen the grip of the past and make room to move forward unburdened.

If I could offer one wish, it would be this: let yourself let go. Release what no longer fits, the weight you were never meant to carry, the doubts that dim your light, the stories that tell you that you are not enough (you are enough). Let 2025 rest where it belongs, and allow 2026 to open like a blank page. Not because the calendar says so, but because every morning offers the same quiet invitation to begin again.

So let us enter this year with softer hearts and steadier steps. Choosing kindness over judgment. Curiosity over certainty. Community over division. We don’t have to agree to belong to one another, we only have to be kind.

Thank you, 2025, for the lessons I didn’t ask for but needed. For the losses that softened me, the changes that redirected me, and the questions that led me back to myself. You were heavy, and you were honest. I have learned. I have listened. And now, with gratitude and intention, I choose to release you, honored, acknowledged, and complete, as I step forward lighter than I arrived.

May 2026 meet you with peace, with possibility, and with the deep permission to walk forward lighter than before.

xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net

28/12/2025

Sitting with the dying has taught me something simple and profound: how we live matters. And part of living well is learning how, and when, to tell the truth.

Not the sharp kind.
Not the unfiltered kind.
The honest, thoughtful truth that’s offered with kindness and care.

So often we hold our words back out of fear; fear of hurting someone's feelings, disappointing them, changing the relationship, or not being able to show up in the way they need. Sometimes we stay in relationships because we are afraid to be honest about how we feel. This is not healthy or fair to us or them.

The truth has a way of staying with us when it is unspoken, like a quiet weight we carry long after the moment has passed. Working in end-of-life care has not only taught me how to live, but also how I don't want to die. I do not want to die with regret, for not saying the things I should have, for not stepping away from unhealthy situations, and for not standing up for myself in times that I absolutely should have.

Giving ourselves permission to tell the truth, gently, compassionately, and with intention, can be deeply freeing.

It doesn’t mean saying everything to everyone.
I agree there are some things we take with us to our grave.
But it does mean honoring ourselves enough to be honest when the moment invites it.

When our words are chosen with care, truth can create space where it is needed, strengthen bonds where they matter, and relieve us of what we were never meant to carry alone.

Living well isn’t about perfection, it is about integrity.
Honor your truth, because even when others don’t agree, choosing honesty lets both hearts find peace.

xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net

26/12/2025

Sometimes what we need most at the end of life, and in the middle of grief, isn’t answers, it is permission.

Permission to forgive ourselves for what we did or didn’t do.
Permission to release the weight we have been carrying.
Permission to let go… and to allow someone we love to let go too.

Yesterday I visited a friend whose dog had been sick a few days. I came to check on both of them. I sat down on the floor beside this dog, a dog that I helped select before he was adopted by my friend. I love him too.

I could feel it in every part of me that his body was preparing to leave. I knew in my heart that he was dying. As I gently stroked his head and back, he leaned into the love, and I whispered, “It’s okay. You can let go. I’m giving you permission to let go.” And I said, “goodbye.”

It was as if he heard me.
His body softened.
Something shifted. And I knew with every ounce of my being that he was letting go.

What comforted me most was that I knew he wasn’t in pain and I wanted to make sure that everyone else knew that too.

Before I left, I let the people who love him know how I was feeling, and to not stop holding on to hope, but that they also deserved to know what I believed in my heart. I truly believe that when we allow ourselves to acknowledge both, we are met with less shock and more peace.
He died a few hours later.

In hospice care, I witness this often. When permission is given, to rest, to release, to forgive, to let go, something inside finally exhales.

If you are standing in that tender space right now, loving someone who is dying, grieving someone you have said goodbye to, or learning how to forgive, give yourself permission…

To let go.
To say goodbye.
To forgive.
To make peace.
To love deeply… and still live fully.

When we give ourselves or others permission to do what is difficult, we are walking alongside them, instead of watching them do it alone… even when we are saying goodbye to them.

xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net

25/12/2025

In my work, and in my own experience with grief, I have learned that those we love never truly leave us. Death does not silence the garden; it simply teaches the flowers to grow elsewhere. They live on in our stories, in familiar laughter, and in the quiet moments when a memory rises and asks to be spoken.

As we gather this holiday, I hope we remember to save them a seat at the table. They don’t have to be physically present to be with us. Say their name. Tell their story. Let the smiles come, even if the tears follow close behind.

The garden still lives in the memories we carry and the love we continue to share, a gentle reminder that remembering can bring comfort, warmth, and a sense of closeness that never truly fades.

xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net

21/12/2025

Life is a gift
a tender breath wrapped in light
something we sometimes forget to marvel at
until it slips away.
We rush through moments
thinking there will always be more
until time reminds us
that nothing is promised
and everything is precious.

Life is meant to be held close
to be savored, cherished and
enjoyed.
If we learned that sooner
maybe our hearts
would rest easier in the end.

Life is the sound of laughter spilling through open doors
but it can also be silence
Life is the gentle act of kindness shared in passing
Life is patience when the world feels heavy
Life is presence when words can’t fix a thing.

Life is joy
not the fleeting kind
but the deep, soul-wide kind
that fills us until we overflow.

Life is mine.
Life is yours.
Life is ours.
A weaving of hearts and hopes and stories.
We live it together
in the small acts that echo long after we are gone.

And if we do anything right in this life
let it be this:
to make a difference
to choose compassion
to honor one another
and to walk gently in peace
so that when others remember us,
they will say...
“I want to live my life the way they did.”

xo
Gabby

You can find this poem here:
https://www.thehospiceheart.net/post/life-is

19/12/2025

Yesterday is a place we return to when today feels unbearable.

It is where things still make sense. Where voices still sound familiar. Where routines exist and love feels intact. Yesterday holds what once was, and because of that, it often becomes a refuge when the present feels too sharp, too empty, too demanding.

In grief, yesterday has weight.

It carries phone calls that used to come easily. Ordinary moments that didn’t announce their importance while they were happening. Shared laughter. Predictable rhythms. The comfort of knowing someone existed just beyond reach. Yesterday is where they still feel real. And today, today is learning how to live with their absence.

We cannot go back to yesterday. That is the ache of it. But we look there anyway, not because we are stuck, but because yesterday holds proof. Proof that love existed. That life was shared. That something meaningful happened here.

Grief pulls us backward not to punish us, but to remind us.

It reminds us of who we were when love was present in a different form. It reminds us that the pain we feel now is directly tied to the depth of what we were given then. Grief is yesterday all over again, not as it was, but as it lives inside us now.

Yesterday is not only about loss. It is also about memory. And memory is a living thing. It shapes how we carry love forward when the person we love can no longer walk beside us. Yesterday becomes the place we visit when tomorrow feels too large to imagine.

There were so many yesterdays. So many moments that felt endless while they were happening. Only later do we understand how precious they were. Only later do we realize how much meaning lived in the ordinary.

Yesterday teaches us that nothing simple is ever insignificant.

In end-of-life care, yesterday often arrives quietly. It shows up in stories told again and again. In memories repeated, not because they are forgotten, but because they matter. Yesterday becomes a way of saying, This life was full. This love was real.

To sit with yesterday is not to move backward. It is to honor what shaped us. It is to allow ourselves to remember without rushing to resolve the pain that comes with it. Remembering is not a failure to move on. It is an act of love.

Yesterday holds unfinished sentences. Things that were not said. Moments that did not get their proper ending. And still, yesterday offers us something gentle: connection. Meaning. A place where love remains intact, even when presence does not.

Today asks us to keep going. Tomorrow asks us to imagine life unfolding without what we have lost. Yesterday asks nothing of us at all. It simply opens its door and lets us sit.

And sometimes, that is exactly what we need.

Yesterday reminds us that we lived fully enough to grieve deeply. That we loved in a way that left a mark. That our ache is not emptiness, but evidence.

We will never get yesterday back. But we carry it with us, woven into who we are becoming. It informs how we love, how we remember, how we show up for others in their own moments of loss.

Yesterday is not a place to stay forever. But it is a place worth visiting.

Because in yesterday, love is still whole.

And remembering is its own kind of grace.

xo
Gabby

You can find this blog here:
https://www.thehospiceheart.net/post/yesterday

18/12/2025

When someone asks “how are you doing,” it’s almost automatic to respond with, “I’m fine.” We say it when we are grieving, when we are sick, when we have had a terrible day, when someone we love is struggling, or when our own heart is breaking. We say it because it is easier than explaining. We say it because it spares others the discomfort of hearing the truth. But the truth is, we are not always fine. Sometimes we are barely holding it together.

Why is it so darn hard to answer honestly? Why can’t we just say it the way it is, “I am not okay,” and trust that the person hearing it will lean in instead of pull away? Why can’t the response be, “what can I do for you?” instead of silence or retreat? We have been taught to hide our pain, to package it neatly so no one else has to feel it, but the human experience was never meant to be lived that way.

It’s okay to say you are not okay. It’s okay to let people see the cracks and the mess. Because some days we are not fine, and admitting that is not weakness, it’s honesty, and honesty is the doorway to connection, care, and healing.

“I’m fine” locks the door, “I’m not okay” opens it.

xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net

17/12/2025

Lizzie Chambers shares the moments and lessons that transformed a ‘wasteland’ into a growing global movement in children’s palliative care.

17/12/2025

15/12/2025

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?

11/12/2025

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has today launched a new policy position on end-of-life and palliative care, calling on government and health system leaders to transform how dying is recognised and supported across the NHS and social care.