Hospice care focuses on nurturing your physical and emotional well-being before the inevitable occurs. And while pain management and comfort have their place, so does making and maintaining meaningful connections with loved ones while you still have time for joy. Engaging in fun, thoughtful activities makes things happier and easier for you and your loved ones, and sharing them together can help build unbreakable bonds they can treasure when you pass.
When you're looking for ways to stay connected during this phase, these fun yet gentle activities can provide moments of peace and connection for you and those who cherish you.
Memories provide comfort during hospice care, and creating a scrapbook helps you relive all your favorites. Gathering photos, keepsakes and mementos together and adding them to a memory book lets you look back on a life well lived and share with loved ones unaware of your rich history. Sit together with friends and family while you organize pictures, write down memories and reflect on special moments these treasures bring to mind. Your loved ones can also contribute by adding their perspectives and memories of shared events, creating a beautiful keepsake for future generations to cherish.
As much as music soothes, it also stokes old memories and lets you time-travel back to the days of your youth. No matter if you're a fan of big band, hymns or popular music from your teenage years, music evokes memories and reconnects you with happy moments. Music apps like Spotify and Pandora let you create playlists filled with your favorite tunes. Encourage loved ones to sing along with you, and create a musical timeline that reflects different stages of your life so they better understand what makes you who you are.
Simple arts and crafts often prove engaging and therapeutic for those in hospice care, especially when you enjoyed these activities before your illness. Whether it's simple things like coloring for those with limited dexterity or knitting and crocheting small projects like scarves or blankets, arts and crafts help you stay active and keep your hands busy, bringing a sense of accomplishment with every craft you create and providing familiar ways to express your creativity.
Reading your favorite books while in hospice care lets you revisit tomes that brought you happiness at different stages of your life. Though reading may prove challenging for those in hospice care due to vision issues, audiobooks solve the problem, with options available from treasured classics to contemporary novels. Loved ones might also read your favorite books aloud to you for a beautiful bonding experience.
Caring for potted plants and arranging flowers bring the beauty of nature indoors and let you enjoy your favorite hobby, even if you can't spend much time outside anymore. Team up with a loved one to choose flower colors and types, arrange the petals just so and take long whiffs of the fragrant blossoms as you create beautiful bouquets together. You can use fresh or faux flowers and display your completed arrangement for visitors and caregivers to see when they enter your space.
Add a sense of nostalgia to your time in hospice care by watching TV and movies you've always enjoyed. The advent of streaming services provides ample opportunities to revisit old Westerns, romances and sci-fi flicks you enjoyed at the theater in your youth, and many, like Tubi and Crackle, are free to watch. Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu also feature entire seasons of TV series, so you can binge-watch your favorites when you don't feel like getting up for the day.
Hospice care often proves time for self-reflection, and sharing those stories with others can help you process the progress you made. Telling loved ones and caregivers stories about your childhood memories lets you relive those times in detail, and sharing milestones like your marriage and the birth of your children can provide comfort for family members when you pass. Consider recording your stories on video or audio, including the lessons you learned from them, so future generations can know you better and appreciate your life's journey.
Helping loved ones process your passing is easier when you leave something behind for closure. Legacy letters do just that, providing opportunities to share your love, advice and self-reflection with individual loved ones in an intimate way. These letters give you time for self-reflection and thinking about what you want to impart to the future, and they give loved ones a way to share your wisdom and connection with others long after you pass.
The emotions and challenges tied to hospice care typically come with a sense of dread, but they don't have to. Taking the time to sit with loved ones and engage in these simple activities demonstrates that the little moments matter most and your memories live on through those who loved you in life.
