Heart Like a Bonfire: A Hospice Worker's Reflections on Grief and Death by John Hughes

Insights about Grief and Death from Hospice Worker John Hughes

John Hughes, for 13 years a spiritual care provider and bereavement specialist treading the challenging path of providing solace and understanding to the dying and the bereaved under hospice care. His journey culminated in creation of a powerful novel, \"Heart Like a Bonfire,\" published on Amazon.

A gathering of poignant, sometimes gut-wrenching & heartbreaking tales. Hughes vividly amalgamates poignant, heartrending tales that unravel the realities of dying, death, grief, and bereavement from several perspectives, facing these with a blend of gritty honesty, humor, and loving spirituality. “So many people are burdened by lack of knowledge about hospice,” Hughes says. “I see this several times a day on my job, as well as our culture-wide fear of death and illiteracy about grief. We go into the dying process with these burdens holding us down. I felt strongly I had to write a book.

What I was most enthused about was the opportunity to put my evolved thoughts, perspectives, and attitudes into practice in the often all-too-real context of hospice. To hold hands with 3200 people as they went through their dying process and with their 10,000 family members as they went through their grief, loss, and bereavement, called strengths of empathy and steadiness from me that I didn't know I had but I grew them to suit.\"

“Dying, death, bereavement, and grief, are areas of challenge which we all must face, and yet our culture and society, avoid the topics out of phobia. Hughes says. “We try to evade that which cannot be evaded, at great cost to ourselves, but we can embrace the reality of our situation with wisdom.

We are weighed down by grief phobia and ignorance of the dying process and of the grief process. This book, with its amusing and poignant stories and it's pointing out instructions, helps people access some of that wisdom. Readers will benefit after laughing and crying,\" Hughes assures. He views his book as an antidote to society's evasion of the unpleasantness of dying and death. The patients and their outspoken family members, plus the chaplain and aide, are strong, outspoken advocates for awareness of the dying process and the grief that follows.

I wrote \"Heart Like A Bonfire\" about hospice work-dying, death, grief, and bereavement in the context of a corporate structure that depends on adhering to governmental regulations for Medicare funding-but also as a voice for common valuing and loving of the human condition.

My heart beat with love for these patients and most of their family members, and when the last of the patients died, my heart was broken, and I cried. Grief is not something to get over and get through so that you can get back to \"Normal.\" Grief itself is the healing. , \"Readers will benefit after laughing and crying,\" Hughes assures. He views his book as an antidote to society's evasion of the unpleasantness of dying and death.

Buy it at https://www.amazon.com/Hear t-Like-Bonfire-John- Hughes/dp/B0C2SG6BNN/