Heather Isaacs

My initials spell "Hi."

Hi.

death and dying

  • The Hairbrush

    I am honored to see an essay of mine published in the most recent issue of The Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. The essay describes an encounter I once had with a hospice patient who was struggling with terminal agitation. When the whole world feels like it is in a state of terminal agitation, Read more

  • The Orant

    TW: grief, death, pediatric trauma. I once arrived to a pediatric ED where, again, the worst had happened. Resuscitation efforts on the baby had just ended. The social worker met me at the threshold and said they needed to excuse themselves; they could not stay in the room because of the nature of the trauma Read more

  • Good-bye, Summer. Thank you for the Old Trees and Ostrich Feet.

    I am saying good-bye to a summer that I was barely present for. This summer was almost entirely lost to me in a dizzying spin of overnight hospital shifts and hours-long commutes across half the state as I patch together a new life for myself since I left full-time hospice chaplaincy work a year ago. Read more

  • Ash Wednesday

    Six years ago, on an Ash Wednesday, the day in the Christian liturgical calendar that marks the beginning of Lent, otherwise known as the 40 days prior to Easter, my family received its own kind of ashes in the news the doctor gave my Dad. “Vascular dementia.” This is the diagnosis my Dad received that Read more

  • Three Beds With Three Televisions

    According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the number of people living with Alzheimer’s and dementia in the United States may triple by 2050, from the staggering 5 million people afflicted at present to as many as 16 million. Even now, it is unlikely any of us can avoid being touched by this disease at some point Read more

  • Help Is On The Way

    Before I begin, I must say that I encounter things in my hospice work that I do not pretend to understand or explain or defend. Much of my career I spend at the edge of not knowing. Often, I feel like Sorcerer’s Apprentice doing my best in the face of profound powers and mysteries to Read more

  • Storm Cloud of Witnesses

    One January morning several years ago, I drove a stretch of Hwy 29 more familiar to me than almost any other after years of traveling up and down the Napa Valley visiting hospice patients in their homes. But on that day, exhausted and soul-weary, I was on my way to a retreat in Mendocino where Read more