Welcome
Welcome to Passings.
Passings.us is an education and resources site about grief, loss, and caregiver support for hospice workers, caregivers, and health professionals.
No matter what brought you here, you will find support as you navigate any of life’s multitudes of transitions.
Some of you may be experiencing Passings that are absolutely devastating, such as a diagnosis with a terminal illness or the death of someone you love. Others are undergoing Passings we may consider to be more generative, like welcoming a baby or beginning a new career.
Each of these transitions is a Passing, a moving into a different world of sorts. Some way of life we have known is no longer present, and something new is appearing in its place. Each new phase of life involves the dying of something.
And humans struggle with dying. We tend to grasp for things that are not present, like the next phase of our life or a previous period when we were content. This grasping causes great suffering for us. Learning to embrace what is present and honor it and release it as it leaves our lives takes great commitment and support.
At Passings, we believe that it is vital to Pass THROUGH these transitions rather than Pass BY them. We honor dissolution, dying, and grief; we also honor creation, birthing, and joy. Each of these experiences is vital to being human, and they are intricately interwoven.
We allow ourselves to be changed by each of the losses in our lives, so we also view transitions as life Passing THROUGH us.