Healthcare Team Critters
If you have been fortunate enough to live with a pet you consider part of your healthcare team, you know already the gifts that little...
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Amy Agape
- Aug 20, 2020
- 3 min
Unlikely Teammates?: Healthy Babies and Sick Elders
My son made his first hospice visit when he was eighteen months old. One day, I mentioned to Lois, the elderly woman I was visiting,...
Amy Agape
- Aug 20, 2020
- 4 min
Lessons From a Bereaved Woman about Dying
My first hospice patient was not a hospice patient. And, as it turns out, I may not have been supporting her as much as she was...
Amy Agape
- Aug 20, 2020
- 3 min
The Flow of Support in a Team Made of Rings
My patient was an elderly man, Hank, who had been living with his son, Steve, for years. They were very close, and Steve was a...
Amy Agape
- Aug 20, 2020
- 3 min
Young, Fit, and Healthy: What Role Do Stereotypes Play on our Healthcare Teams?
“I wonder what she feels like in that healthy body?” I remember one of the earliest days after I received my diagnosis. I moved as...
Amy Agape
- Aug 20, 2020
- 3 min
Creating Your Healthcare Team
“Please don’t mention the word ‘hospice’ to my mother. We don’t want her to know Dad is dying.” I hear this from a son, concerned about...
Amy Agape
- Jul 31, 2020
- 4 min
Pity is Not Solidarity
“I respect you too much to pity you.” I paused when I heard these words, my hiking boot poised mid-air in search of a ledge on which to...
Amy Agape
- Jul 30, 2020
- 5 min
Fear of Catching Something: A Barrier to Cultivating Solidarity
Nineteen years ago, I quickly became friends with another young mother. We belonged to the same church, and normally we might not have...
Amy Agape
- Jul 30, 2020
- 5 min
The Role of Radical Listening in Cultivating Solidarity
I turned my head as the door to my hospital room opened. In walked a very young intern. He barely looked up from my chart as he said,...
Amy Agape
- Jul 2, 2020
- 5 min
Chronic Heart Failure: Diagnosing Broken Systems
Each time I sit down to do Passings work -- to write a blog or answer an email, to engage in a spiritual companioning session or to...
Amy Agape
- Jul 1, 2020
- 4 min
Who is Missing?: Disparity in End of Life Care
“Stand up. Look around at everyone in this room,” he said before pausing to allow us to follow his instructions. The 200 or so...
Amy Agape
- Jun 30, 2020
- 3 min
Shattered Assumptions, Grief, and Expanding World Views
The world is safe. The world is orderly. I am a worthy person. You may have grown up with any or all of the above assumptions. Many of...
Amy Agape
- Jun 28, 2020
- 4 min
Vulnerable Bodies and the Air We Breathe
On May 25, my family and I moved into a new home in a new town. Changing homes during the Covid 19 pandemic required an immense amount...
Amy Agape
- Jun 9, 2020
- 5 min
Racism as Designed Disorder
He called for Mama. His own mother, Larcenia Floyd, had died two years before and was unable to come to him. Even if she were still...
Amy Agape
- Apr 29, 2020
- 2 min
Classic Children's Stories about Home and Family
As I ponder what “home” means to me, I keep returning to two books my children and I treasure. We read these hundreds of times during...
Amy Agape
- Apr 29, 2020
- 2 min
Where I'm From: Poetry to Read and to Create
“I am from clothespins, From Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride” The first time I read these lines, I immediately began to feel them in my...
Amy Agape
- Apr 29, 2020
- 4 min
Home as a Feeling of Peace: Interview with Saul Ebema
Saul Ebema lost his parents and family home to unimaginable violence when he was just a boy. He then lived in a refugee camp, on the...
Amy Agape
- Apr 29, 2020
- 6 min
Can We Die "At Home" -- Even in the Hospital Without Family?
On my way out of town for the week, I visit Susie in her home. She is actively dying, so I know that this will likely be the last time I...
Amy Agape
- Feb 29, 2020
- 5 min
Practices of Surrender: A True Treasure during Transitions
I don’t know how to do this. I repeated this phrase over and over again as I lay in my hospital bed. Recently diagnosed with a rare...
Amy Agape
- Feb 28, 2020
- 5 min
Embodied Care
I spent the better part of three decades not living in my body. For thirty years, my physical form served mostly as either a container...