Death By Design

Neil Beresin has worked with individuals and families in hospitals, hospice, schools, and private practice. Multiple lenses frame Neil's practice, including the work of theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, psychologists Francis Weller and Murray Bowen, physician/writer Rachael Naomi Remen and the practice of mindfulness through poetry.

Neil sees radical listening and reverent attentiveness as a spiritual practice. He meets individuals where they are and focus on helping them increase their ability to cope with what are often extraordinary circumstances. The focuses may be to increase ones’ ability to manage change, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, and the overwhelming heartache that emerges. It may include assisting individuals to connect or reconnect to practices, people, and principles that matter most to them. Neil may use poetry to provide additional comfort, deepen the space between us, and encourage reflection and opening.

Neil Beresin helps individuals reflect on, metabolize, and shape their loss in a safe, sacred, meditative space.

www.griefandpoetry.com

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Jane Duncan Rogers is an award-winning life and death coach who helps people prepare well for a good end of life. Having been in the field of psychotherapy and personal growth for 25 years, she is founder of Before I Go Solutions, dedicated to educating people about dying, death, and grief.

Before I Go Solutions is a social enterprise (sometimes known as a not-for-profit).

We help people all over the world to actually get their plans done!

Through your donation, no matter how big or small, you would be contributing to

the sponsorship of someone of a low income from a developing country who would be a suitable candidate for the end of life plan Facilitators Training - thereby bringing this work to their local communities.

If you'd like to help in this way, please donate now, and help one person's life to grow so they can help others. Every donation counts towards our mission: "having end of life plans become as commonplace as birth plans!"

https://beforeigosolutions.com

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Kathleen Vallee Stein worked as an advocate for Medicare beneficiaries for many years. She became familiar with the Medicare Hospice benefit and the reluctance on the part of families to consider it.

When her father was terminally ill, she experienced first-hand the difficulties families face when confronted with end-of-life issues. The dreaded decision to stop curative care and begin comfort care was monumentally difficult but resulted in a transformative experience for Ms. Stein and her family. She was moved to write a book about it, from a family member’s point of view.

Ms. Stein’s opinion pieces have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Pasadena Star-News, Orange County Register, and the Jewish Journal for more than twenty years. She writes about a variety of life experiences, such as caring for aging parents, raising children, and reflections on work, friendship, and nature. Loving Choices, Peaceful Passing: Why My Family Chose Hospice is her first book.

Ms. Stein was Manager of the Los Angeles County Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program (HICAP) for the California Department of Aging. She trained volunteer peer counselors in Medicare and related health insurance, provided community education, and advocated for changes in Medicare law to benefit seniors.

She was Director of Volunteers at the Aviva Center, a residential treatment facility for abused and neglected adolescent girls. As Director of Volunteer Development for Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles, she trained Girl Scout leaders in outdoor skills and troop management. As Park Ranger at Monrovia Canyon Park, she trained and directed a corps of Volunteer Rangers and led local schoolchildren on educational hikes through the canyon.

Ms. Stein received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from California State University – Northridge. 

https://www.valleeview.com

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Allison Gilbert is an Emmy award-winning journalist and one of the most thought-provoking and influential writers on grief and resilience. The author of numerous books including the groundbreaking, Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive, her stirring work exposes the secret and essential factor for harnessing loss to drive happiness and rebound from adversity. She serves on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance for Grieving Children and the Advisory Board for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, the preeminent national organization providing grief support to families of America’s fallen heroes.

Allison’s other books include, Parentless Parents: How the Loss of Our Mothers and Fathers Impacts the Way We Raise Our Children and Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents. She is also co-editor of Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11, the definitive historical record of how broadcast journalists covered that tragic day. The landmark book was turned into a documentary by the U.S. State Department and distributed to embassies and consulates around the world. Allison is the official narrator of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s core historical exhibition audio tour and her voice is introduced by Robert De Niro on the museum’s “Witnessing History” tour, the only female journalist to be so honored.

On Allison’s popular grief and resilience blog, she features Q & A’s with some of the most notable names in our culture today including, Arianna Huffington, Jon Stewart, and New York Times bestselling authors Gretchen Rubin, Dani Shapiro, and Susan Orlean.

Allison is a sought-after expert on grief, loss, resilience, cancer prevention, and September 11, appearing on TODAY, CNN, and MSNBC. She’s appeared at New York Open Center with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Soledad O’Brien, and she’s frequently quoted in print and online, her perspective featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications.

Allison is a popular workshop leader and keynote speaker, helping individuals transform personal and professional setbacks into opportunity. She has spoken to such diverse groups as Google, Time Warner, National Association for Female Executives, Women’s Enterprise Development Center Inc., JCC in Manhattan, 92Y, Gilda’s Club, and New York Public Library. She also partners with hospitals, hospices, funeral homes, and religious institutions, to bring her one-of-a-kind Memory Bash® events to communities across the country. She has run these fun and meaningful events for many groups, including New Song Center for Grieving Children in Phoenix, Hospice of the South Shore in Boston, and NorthShore University Hospital and Hospice in Chicago, to name just a few. Allison has served as Executive Family & Memories Editor for Legacy Republic and spokesperson for Funeral Service Foundation’s Have the Talk of a Lifetimecampaign.

Her work can also be quite personal and revealing. After the death of Allison’s mother to ovarian cancer and her aunt and grandmother to breast cancer, (and following genetic testing that determined she is BRCA1 positive), she made the life-affirming choice to have two preventative cancer surgeries. Her pioneering series for HuffPost, “My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer,” chronicles her decision to have a prophylactic hysterectomy. Allison writes about undergoing a double mastectomy in The New York Times and talks about the operation and recovery on MSNBC and with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Allison started her career in TV news, covering most every major news story in the last 20 years — including 9/11, when she was on the job and nearly killed by falling debris. At CNN, Allison produced TV segments and wrote stories for CNN.com. Before CNN, she was a special projects producer at WABC-TV and an investigative producer at WNBC-TV, both in New York. She was also part of the original launch teams for New York 1 News and MSNBC. Allison currently serves as Senior Writer for The Center for Parent and Teen Communication, located within the Division of Adolescent Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Allison has received three Emmy awards and six Emmy nominations for various hard news reporting. She’s been awarded first place for consumer investigation by the National Association of Black Journalists, won “Best Multi-Part Investigative Series” by the Society of Professional Journalists, and received “Best Public Service” award by the Associated Press. For Parentless Parents, she’s winner of the Washington Irving Book Award.

Allison graduated from Georgetown University and lives outside New York City. She and her husband have a son in college and a daughter soon to finish high school. You can learn more about her here: www.allisongilbert.com.

https://www.allisongilbert.com/courses/

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Allison Gilbert is an Emmy award-winning journalist and one of the most thought-provoking and influential writers on grief and resilience. The author of numerous books including the groundbreaking, Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive, her stirring work exposes the secret and essential factor for harnessing loss to drive happiness and rebound from adversity. She serves on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance for Grieving Children and the Advisory Board for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, the preeminent national organization providing grief support to families of America’s fallen heroes.

Allison’s other books include, Parentless Parents: How the Loss of Our Mothers and Fathers Impacts the Way We Raise Our Children and Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents. She is also co-editor of Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11, the definitive historical record of how broadcast journalists covered that tragic day. The landmark book was turned into a documentary by the U.S. State Department and distributed to embassies and consulates around the world. Allison is the official narrator of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s core historical exhibition audio tour and her voice is introduced by Robert De Niro on the museum’s “Witnessing History” tour, the only female journalist to be so honored.

On Allison’s popular grief and resilience blog, she features Q & A’s with some of the most notable names in our culture today including, Arianna Huffington, Jon Stewart, and New York Times bestselling authors Gretchen Rubin, Dani Shapiro, and Susan Orlean.

Allison is a sought-after expert on grief, loss, resilience, cancer prevention, and September 11, appearing on TODAY, CNN, and MSNBC. She’s appeared at New York Open Center with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Soledad O’Brien, and she’s frequently quoted in print and online, her perspective featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications.

Allison is a popular workshop leader and keynote speaker, helping individuals transform personal and professional setbacks into opportunity. She has spoken to such diverse groups as Google, Time Warner, National Association for Female Executives, Women’s Enterprise Development Center Inc., JCC in Manhattan, 92Y, Gilda’s Club, and New York Public Library. She also partners with hospitals, hospices, funeral homes, and religious institutions, to bring her one-of-a-kind Memory Bash® events to communities across the country. She has run these fun and meaningful events for many groups, including New Song Center for Grieving Children in Phoenix, Hospice of the South Shore in Boston, and NorthShore University Hospital and Hospice in Chicago, to name just a few. Allison has served as Executive Family & Memories Editor for Legacy Republic and spokesperson for Funeral Service Foundation’s Have the Talk of a Lifetimecampaign.

Her work can also be quite personal and revealing. After the death of Allison’s mother to ovarian cancer and her aunt and grandmother to breast cancer, (and following genetic testing that determined she is BRCA1 positive), she made the life-affirming choice to have two preventative cancer surgeries. Her pioneering series for HuffPost, “My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer,” chronicles her decision to have a prophylactic hysterectomy. Allison writes about undergoing a double mastectomy in The New York Times and talks about the operation and recovery on MSNBC and with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Allison started her career in TV news, covering most every major news story in the last 20 years — including 9/11, when she was on the job and nearly killed by falling debris. At CNN, Allison produced TV segments and wrote stories for CNN.com. Before CNN, she was a special projects producer at WABC-TV and an investigative producer at WNBC-TV, both in New York. She was also part of the original launch teams for New York 1 News and MSNBC. Allison currently serves as Senior Writer for The Center for Parent and Teen Communication, located within the Division of Adolescent Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Allison has received three Emmy awards and six Emmy nominations for various hard news reporting. She’s been awarded first place for consumer investigation by the National Association of Black Journalists, won “Best Multi-Part Investigative Series” by the Society of Professional Journalists, and received “Best Public Service” award by the Associated Press. For Parentless Parents, she’s winner of the Washington Irving Book Award.

Allison graduated from Georgetown University and lives outside New York City. She and her husband have a son in college and a daughter soon to finish high school. You can learn more about her here: www.allisongilbert.com.

https://www.allisongilbert.com/courses/

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“I think we need to do something about death.”

Liz lost her dad as a young kid, when her grandmother (dad’s mom) died in the winter of 2018, she was tasked with all of the planning that ensued. She walked into the nursing home where her grandmother lived and was confronted with two police officers, a nurse, her grandmother’s body, and a question of “what do you want to do next?” Needless to say, the experience was overwhelming, complicated, and pretty much entirely unguided.

Liz started asking questions about why a better option didn’t exist and turned to Alyssa, her go-to person for cracking a difficult challenge. Together they started answering that question with “it should and we should build it.”

Liz built her first company at 15 and led communications from inception for the nation's first free, 24/7 crisis support line, Crisis Text Line. She's also a board member of Experience Camps, a free summer camp for grieving kids.

https://lantern.co

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In addition to being a wife and mother, Laura Sterner found her calling is wellness. Finding her place in life has been an evolution. For Laura, it started with poor nutrition, lack of sleep, and excessive stress as a norm. This lifestyle, and a genetic predisposition, yielded a fight with blood pressure issues when she had her firstborn. Holding the new little life, as well as her own health issues, provided a wake-up call to start initiating a lifestyle change. Fast forward 3 years, Laura's middle child, and only son, was born. His arrival also came with a bundle of allergic responses, asthma, and an ALTE, and Laura, still had blood pressure issues. This was where the rubber hit the road. Laura's focus shifted to ingesting as much information as she could regarding wellness to improve her family’s quality of life. She had been on an info gathering mission ever since, but now with a much clearer sense of purpose and a desire to help others who have faced a similar journey and challenges. This new path has drastically changed the quality of life, and Laura's desire is to be able to support others to make positive changes to create a ripple effect of health. In today’s hustle, families have an ever-increased need for guidance navigating the health industry and finding their own balance. With Laura's skill set, Her hope to provide guidance to individuals and families so that they can make decisions to improve their wellness.

http://laurasterner.com/

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Erica Buist is a journalist and writer from London, England, and the author of the forthcoming book This Party's Dead. After finding her father-in-law dead after eight days, she embarked on a journey around the world to seven festivals for the dead – in Mexico, Nepal, Sicily, Thailand, Madagascar, Japan and Indonesia – to see how other cultures deal with death anxiety. Along the way she also met a voodoo priestess, an anti-death campaigner, and was even hit in the head by a corpse.

Available to preorder from Waterstones (hardback) and Barnes & Noble (ebook)

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As a senior adult, Lesleigh Tolin lost both of her parents. She grew up in a home where alcohol and emotional and physical abuse created ongoing chaos. She knows what it’s like to camouflage emotional pain. As a young girl and a young woman, Lesleigh suffered from the addiction of binge eating. She's known the sweetness of recovery from food addiction for several decades. She was honored to give her father a 14 year chip at AA the year before he died.

Lesleigh has suffered the loss of dear friends to cancer, to suicide, and to a plane crash. She has weathered the deep emotional loss of beloved pets. She knows the heartache of divorce in early life and the sadness of a final farewell to her late ex-husband. Later in life, Lesleigh is now married to a wonderful man, a former widower and has experienced how loss and change can impact a loving family. Lesleigh knows firsthand the vulnerability of dating a widower, blending families, and creating a flourishing relationship.

It is these life experiences, combined with her education, training and deep empathy for human suffering that make her so proud to do this work. Today, Lesleigh has joy in her life and considers it an honor to help others reclaim their heart and their lives through the Grief Recovery Method.

https://lesleighjtolin.com

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We are North Carolina’s only citizen advocacy Not for Profit specifically seeking enactment of Medical Aid in Dying legislation in N.C. and respect for every individual’s End of Life Decision.

Jay Niver is a retired journalist and public relations consultant who became involved in the right-to-die movement by supporting and documenting his father's "final exit.” An Ohio native, Jay worked 30 years in the Carolinas before moving to Canada and returning after his wife's long, drawn-out surrender to terminal disease. He has extensive experience in corporate and healthcare communications, as well as editing newspapers and specialized publications.

[email protected]

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