Gail Rosen
Consultant, Facilitator, Educator, Storyteller for Hospice and Bereavement
Storytelling and Bereavement
Grieving is a part of life. It is proof that relationships matter to us, that we love, and that we are human. Storytelling facilitates grieving for all ages, adults as well as children. I offer stories that model the common experiences of grief, stimulate dialogue and offer possibilities for insight and meaning making.
Some of the stories are funny, some moving. Some are folk tales, some personal. People around the world and throughout time have wrestled with loss and meaning. Stories help us to make sense out of what we can perceive of life and death.
Storytelling and Hospice
Storytelling helps hospice staff and volunteers experience the power and the healing in listening, to help people find meaning in the unique experiences of their lives. Listening broadens our awareness of diversity in response to illness, dying and death.
Stories also open doors to communication, easing and modeling conversation between staff and families, patients and caregivers and within staff teams.
Stories “nurture the nurturers,” helping those who offer care to stay in touch with the commitment and values which draw them to this work.
“Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t, but once there was an old woman.
She was very old, even older than the gardener who had planted the first tree in the world.
But she was full of life and never dreamt of dying. . . One day Death remembered the old woman and knocked on her cottage door. . . .”
Bereavement and Hospice
Photo by Eve Rennebarth