I'm a pediatric hospice/palliatice care social worker.
I've learned a LOT.
1. Never wait to say something important.
2. Never doubt that what you have to say is important to someone.
3. Never let your own needs get in the middle of someone else's dying process.
4. People are going to die whether you're around or not. Your involvment in those persons' lives and the lives of their loved ones can either be a good one or not so good one. You decide.
5. Kids are way smarter than all of us.
6. They know you are there. (Plus, if you say something after they stop breathing and they start again, they might bust you for "talking shit". It happens.)
7. You can't be there all the time for everyone. And half of the people in your life don't want you there anyway. So get over it.
8. A phone call is never wrong. Showing up at the house with food can be. But a phone can be answered or ignored. Suck it up.
9. Death isn't always ugly. Sometimes it's pretty and peaceful. And morticians can make it HIDEOUS.
10. You have to have a sense of humor about illness, bodily functions, death, etc. Other people do not.
