March 04, 2024

Ep. 445 Grief and Bereavement on the Hospice Journey with Barbara Karnes RN

1 hour 5 minutes

Learn about grief from the perspective of two hospice providers on their personal experiences of loss.

This week I’m happy to be speaking once again to my recurring guest Barbara Karnes RN, hospice nurse, author, thought leader and expert on end-of-life care and the dynamics of dying. Barbara is the author of “the little blue book” used by hospices around the world to teach families what to expect as their loved one dies. She is also the author of My Friend, I Care, a book about grief that she designed to be used as a sympathy card. She discusses the bereavement support that is a required benefit of hospice care and we delve deeply into our own grief experiences and what we learned from them. Learn more about Barbara’s work at her website:

bkbooks.com

Get the book here

YouTube Channel

Listen here:

This episode includes:

What hospices are required to provide for bereavement care

Why grievers may not attend bereavement groups offered by hospices

How hospice volunteers can be helpful with bereavement

Why some grievers may prefer more solitude and less interaction with others in the early days after a death

Learning how to live without a loved one who has died is the ongoing work of grief

The grief we learned about in textbooks is not the same as the real experience of deep grief

Why support groups may be more helpful later in the grief process

Anticipatory grief that occurs from the moment of diagnosis

Journaling as a tool for grieving

How our grief experiences can be sacred to us

Links mentioned in this episode:

Toby Keith video

Previous interview with Mary Francis O’Connor on The Grieving Brain

NEW Gift Guides for Caregivers, People Receiving Care, and People Who are Grieving

Get my two new books!! Stories from the Dark Night and The Tao of Death

Get EOLU Podcast Merch here

Conversations on Death with ChatGPT – Audiobook here; Print Book here

Leave me a message by email: [email protected], Twitter, Facebook or Instagram

Support your local bookstore by buying my books on Bookshop and Indiebound: 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying and The Journey from Ego to Soul

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Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here

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By Karen Wyatt MD

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