Here’s a truth about me—I’m not gifted at small talk. Instead, I prefer to spend my time wrestling with the big, sometimes daunting questions about how to live well in this world and navigate its many challenges.

Years ago, as a hospice volunteer and later as a volunteer and then intern in a children’s hospital, I came to understand illness as an often significant turning point in people’s lives. I could show up as fully myself in these places—small talk, fortunately, didn’t matter so much there—and simply walk alongside patients and their families, as a fellow human, while they faced hard things.

For the last six years I’ve provided massage therapy to hospice patients and here, too, I’ve gotten to be a small part of hundreds of remarkable lives as people navigate transitions big and small, ones that are at their core universal and that we’ll each face in our time.

I’ve come to believe that words, in the midst of change and struggle, can help light the way a bit: imperfect as they are, they can give shape to pain and to beauty and the full map of human experience. Words can also be informational and help answer practical questions at a time when the world just feels like a lot.

Alongside my healthcare work, I spent ten years writing articles and profiles for magazines. Today I’m bringing my two loves together—words and my passion for hospice and palliative care. If you need a writer, please reach out; I promise we’ll get right to it and explore how I can help you make meaningful connections with current and prospective patients.