Nina de Cocq, EOLD, RMT

09/04/2026

08/22/2026

I am often asked why someone is taking so long to die, especially when they have gone days without food or water, they are no longer responsive, and with or without medications, they have settled into their dying process while everyone waits. Sometimes impatiently.

I will say to them, “the body knows what to do, and we need to trust that.” I believe this, and it can usually comfort those at the bedside who are waiting day after day, exhausted, sometimes frustrated, and in many ways have put their grief on hold because it has become too hard to sit with those emotions day after day. They continue waiting, trusting the process, knowing that their person will eventually let go and find peace.

But sometimes they cannot accept this answer and they struggle with the “why?” This is when I share my thoughts, which goes to a deeper, more emotional, or spiritual place. You see, I have a theory that when someone is dying, there is a certain sense of awareness they still have, and before they can truly let go, they need to make peace with their past, perhaps let go of some guilt or regret, but also, I think they need to say goodbye to the life they had. This takes time, especially if they are in their eighties or nineties, that is a lot of life to say goodbye too.

But what about the younger ones, those who die way too soon, who don’t have a long life to say goodbye too, what are they holding on for? Why are they taking so long? This one is harder to answer, and sadly, I have witnessed this many times. Perhaps they are trying to make peace with having less time, finding gratitude for the life they did have, while also savoring life just a little bit longer, even if not fully present for it.

I was speaking to a man whose mother held on for many days. Ten days prior to her death, I told him she could let go in a matter of hours or days, neither could be predicted, but I honestly thought it would be hours. I spoke with him every single day, and despite the length of time this was taking, he welcomed my thoughts, and embraced the idea that she needed time to reflect. We decided that this waiting period was a soul review, an opportunity to revisit the past, finding purpose in the life she lived, the choices she made, and the people she loves.

I imagine them doing an anointing of sorts for their body, thanking it for everything it did for them…
Their brain for their thoughts, creativity, decisions.
Their eyes for all they have seen.
Their mouth for the words they have expressed.
Their heart for the love they have given, and the love they have received.
Their arms for the hugs they have welcomed and those that they extended.
Their hands for the work they have done, and the comfort they have provided.
Their legs and their feet for holding them up and supporting them.

And once they have finished their soul review, extending gratitude for a life they were gifted, and making peace with their last goodbye, they can finally let go.

The truth is though, and I continue to stand by this as well, the body does know what to do. We can intervene with medications to reduce symptoms and suffering, and we can provide verbal and tactile stimuli for comfort, support, and a feeling of safety, but at the end of the day, the timing of when the body finally let’s go, is not about us. And that is what we must find a way to make peace with.

xo
Gabby

08/19/2026

💗

Some of you may already know that I am a facilitator with the Humane Prison Hospice Project. I have been doing this work since 2023. Each time I am invited into a prison, my passion for this work evolves in ways I never quite expect.

I recently spent time with incarcerated men who are providing end-of-life care to others behind bars. Last week, we talked about vigiling, what it means to sit at the bedside of someone who is dying, and the quiet power of presence. We talked about meeting people where they are, without needing to fix anything. They reminded me that presence itself is one of the most unselfish gifts we can offer another human being.

During my last visit the conversation centered around grief.

Not just grief after death, but grief in all the ways it exists throughout a life. The loss of relationships. The loss of opportunities. The loss of the person you once were. The grief of choices made, paths not taken, and futures that will never unfold the way you imagined.

Some spoke about losing loved ones they could not say goodbye to. Others spoke about having the chance to say goodbye even if they could not attend a funeral. We talked about witnessing dying men reconnect with family after years of silence, and sometimes witnessing families still carrying anger, hurt, and regret.

What struck me most was this: grief is rarely about one thing. It is layered into our disappointments, our trauma, our regrets, our love, our humanity, and even our hope. It becomes part of the story of who we were, who we are, and who we still want to become.

I left feeling deeply humbled and incredibly grateful. This work fills my heart with purpose, but it also gently asks me to look at my own life with more honesty and compassion.

I think all of us are searching for ways to matter, ways to contribute, and ways to leave people feeling seen, valued, or less alone.

And maybe sometimes it starts simply with being willing to sit beside another human being and truly see them.

Compassion does not ask who deserves it, it simply rises from the heart of one human being and reaches toward another. And sometimes, in the most unexpected places, we witness it in its purest form.

xo
Gabby

To learn more about the Humane Prison Hospice Project click this link: https://humaneprisonhospiceproject.org/

08/15/2026

Meet Jenny. 👋 She’s receiving end of life care in our West Midlands Hospice. Here's what Jenny wants you to know about dying – from someone who is. 💛

1. I can make the choices I want to make and I’m supported to make those choices. The care I’ve had here means I feel well enough to say this is what I want and I'm being listened to, I cannot ask for anything better than that. I’ve had a good life and Marie Curie is enabling me to have a good death because I’m being supported. That empowers me so much.

2. Say I love you. I text people to say I love them every morning so they know I'm still alive and I've made it to another day. Hopefully at some point those messages will be a comfort for them when they need it and I hope it’ll help them remember me with a smile.

3. In life and death, we want to be treated as ourselves. The Marie Curie team treat me as me. They've given me my dignity. We have a laugh and a joke because that's just me. I swear a lot and I want to make people smile because, you know, I don't want people to be sad. That's not me. They've read my character very well and they are reflecting it back at me with their care and humour and that's just flipping wonderful. Because in life and death, we want to be treated as ourselves, not as a patient, not as a number.

4. In hospital you might feel helpless because you're not well enough to take charge of your care. It was a very traumatic time for my family, I was stuck there and no-one seemed interested. I’m lucky because I had my family fighting to get me here where we’re now all being taken care of – there’s nothing to be scared about dying if you’re well supported.

5. Palliative care needs to be properly funded so everyone can get the care and support they need. I don't know the ins and outs of government funding, but I know it's not right and it's not fair that what you get depends on where you live. My dream would be that everyone could have an experience like mine. I've always said how grateful I am to be supported on this last journey and I treat each new day as a gift.

6. I’m not scared of dying. Of course you have to allow yourself time to process it, it’s a lot to take in and you have to be kind to yourself. Everyone is different and everyone’s journey is different, but there's only so many things you can change in life, isn't there? Some you can, a lot of things you can't, so now I am in the place of acceptance. It’s all about the love. You come in with love. You want to go out with love. I think of death as redistributing energy and I hope my positive energy stays with the people around me for a long, long time.

08/12/2026

This is it.

08/09/2026

"Teresa Dellar spends her days inside Lakeshore General Hospital, working as an oncology social worker in Montreal's West Island.

She sits with families as doctors deliver the news no one wants to hear.

She watches something else, too, something that never stops bothering her.

In the final weeks of life, patients get moved. Not home. Not somewhere familiar.

They get sent downtown, to hospital wards two bus transfers away from everyone they love, to die among strangers in a building that was never built for dying.

Dellar earned her Bachelor's in Social Work from McGill in 1983. She went back for her Master's in 1990.

By the late 1990s she has spent close to 15 years watching this exact failure repeat itself, family after family, and she decides she is done just watching it.

1998. Dellar teams up with Russell Williams, then a member of Quebec's National Assembly for the Kirkland area.

Together they set out to build something that does not exist yet on the island of Montreal: a home built only for dying well.

Not a hospital wing. Not a hallway with a curtain pulled around a bed. An actual residence, with private rooms, where a person's last address is somewhere that looks and feels like home.

The idea is simple. The ex*****on is not.

There is no building. There is no funding. There is only a plan, a handful of believers, and years of fundraising ahead of them before a single patient can walk through the door.

Here's what makes it worse: while Dellar spends years chasing donations and government meetings, the patients she is trying to help keep dying the old way. Every season of fundraising is a season of families still getting the transfer notice, still packing a dying parent into an ambulance headed downtown.

She keeps going anyway.

October 2002. Four years after the idea started, the West Island Palliative Care Residence opens its doors in Kirkland, Quebec. Nine private beds. The first freestanding facility of its kind on the island of Montreal.

Dellar becomes Executive Director in 2001, a year before the doors even open, and stays in that role for the rest of her life.

She tells a visitor exactly what she means the Residence to be. You come in through the front door, she says, and you leave by the front door too. No back exit. No hidden hallway for the dead. The same respect walking out as walking in.

Word spreads. Families who thought their dying relative would spend final weeks alone in a downtown ward start hearing about a house in Kirkland where nine people at a time get to die at home in every way that matters, just not literally their own home.

Dellar earns a Bereavement Facilitator certification in 1995, before the Residence even opens. She adds an Association for Death Education and Counseling certification in 2009. In 2012 she becomes a certified Fellow in Thanatology.

That same year, 2012, the Residence adds 14 more beds on a dedicated floor of a nearby long-term care facility. Total capacity: 23 beds. It becomes the largest freestanding, community-based palliative care residence in the entire country.

For 21 years, Dellar runs it. Colleagues remember her wit as much as her vision, a leader who could find lightness inside a building where every single guest is dying.

By 2019, more than 4,400 people have died inside those walls, surrounded by trained volunteers and staff instead of strangers on a downtown ward.

Then the disease she spent two decades fighting on behalf of others comes for her.

Teresa Dellar dies of cancer on August 19, 2019, at the Royal Victoria Hospital, at 58 years old.

She spent 21 years making sure other people did not die afraid and alone in an unfamiliar place. In the end, she does not get to walk back out the front door of the home she built.

On September 10, 2020, the Residence is officially renamed in her honor. The Teresa Dellar Palliative Care Residence. A capital campaign called Caring and Sharing raises $14,570,000 to expand her vision even further under one roof.

Today the Residence relies on more than 300 trained volunteers who give over 29,000 hours of care every single year, free of charge to every family that walks through that same front door Dellar once described.

None of it started with a building or a grant. It started with one social worker who could not stop thinking about strangers dying alone on a hospital ward two bus transfers from home, and who decided that was something she could actually fix.

Someone who needs to know - the people who quietly refuse to accept "that's just how it is" are the ones who end up changing everything."

08/09/2026

So apparently, I don’t get invited to many parties anymore. Can’t imagine why. I bring snacks, I laugh at people’s jokes… oh, and yes, I might casually bring up death somewhere between the chips and the cheese platter. My “Gabby’s Swear Jar” has a few sad coins rattling around, but my “Gabby Talked About Death at a Party Jar”? Overflowing. Like, needs-a-bigger-jar overflowing.

But here’s the thing, I don’t talk about death to kill the vibe (pun totally intended). I talk about it because it matters. If we don’t talk about it, no one else will. And if my party small talk inspires someone to have that big, necessary conversation with someone they love, then I’d say that’s better than debating which Bravo show has the most drama, though, let’s be honest, it’s always Real Housewives.

So yes, I may be the guest who accidentally turns cocktail hour into group therapy, and there might be a few tears in the room, but if it helps even one person face the hard stuff with a little more courage and grace, then pass me another coin for the jar. Talking about death won’t make it happen sooner… but it might make living a whole lot richer.

Maybe one day I’ll learn to keep things light, but until then, I’ll just show up with tissues AND a bottle of w**e. I like to think of it as emotional hydration with options.

xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net