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Talk About Dying is an independent grassroots organization committed to providing safe, supportive, free community workshops to explore issues of living and dying on the practical, emotional and spiritual planes. 

Join us on Saturday, June 11th 2-5pm

Healthcare Proxies & End of Life Choices:

Who Will Speak for Me, and What Should They Say?

at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Catskills

320 Sawkill Rd. Kingston, NY  *** Please note, Sawkill Rd is under construction, use detour onto Rt. 209***

PLEASE RSVP by clicking here: Info@TalkAboutDying.com

In this workshop, facilitated by Talk About Dying founder Carol Robin, DC, we will discuss choosing an appropriate healthcare proxy and getting clear about what you really want. Your healthcare proxy is the person who will voice your choices and desires if you cannot speak for yourself. This is important not only at end of life, but anytime that you cannot speak for yourself due to illness, accident or surgery. 

Choosing the right person, who both understands your wishes and is willing and able to speak for you in challenging situations is an important and sometimes difficult choice. This is especially crucial for people who do not have a partner or family member who can fill this role.

We will also explore how we really want to be cared for in different possible situations and look at customizing and personalizing legal forms like Five Wishes (available from AgingWithDignity.org See our Resource page for links.) Please bring a journal to write in, and any ideas or questions about your wishes.
In our March workshop,  “Aid in Dying in New York: Your Right to Choose,” our guest speaker Laurie Leonard, LMSW, Associate Director of End Of Life Choices New York discussed aid in dying, which is now legal in five states. In these states, doctors are allowed to prescribe a life ending medication for a terminally ill, mentally competent patient, which the patient must self-administer, if he or she chooses to do so, in order to have a peaceful death. For more information on this issue, and the status of laws in New York, please visit   End of Life Choices New York ,  a nonprofit organization that through leadership, advocacy, education and counseling, seeks to expand choice at the end of life and improve the quality of care for New Yorkers, ensuring that their values and wishes are respected.

Why Talk About Dying…

Talk About Dying offers free workshops to the community to explore our experiences and beliefs about death in ways that are personally meaningful. We are committed to exploring issues of living and dying on the practical, emotional and spiritual planes.  If you are interested in sponsoring a workshop in your community and would like us to facilitate, please contact us.

Talk About Dying is a project created by Carol Robin, DC and Jill Dorsi, LCSW. We each draw on over 3 decades of experience in clinical work, teaching and facilitating groups to provide a safe, supportive free space for our community to discuss these important issues. From our professional experience and our personal experiences with death and dying, we believe that it is crucial that we both think about and talk about our ideas, feelings, intentions and end of life choices for ourselves, our families and our communities.

We believe that death is both a mystery and an integral part of life. In our culture, there is a reluctance to talk about dying and all the complexity of issues that it encompasses – often, until it is too late. We believe that this does not serve either the dying person, those in their circle of family and friends, or our community as a whole.

We created this project because we believe that there is a great need in our community to talk about issues of death and dying in a deep, complex, and supported way. Our intent is to provide a safe, supportive space for our community to talk about all aspects of death and dying.

Death on the Practical Plane:

  • practical considerations like health care proxies, living wills, end of life plans and choices, what do I want at the end of my life, who will speak for me? How much medical intervention do I want?

Death on the Emotional Plane:

  • how we feel about our own mortality and dying process, how we adjust to new scenarios and new structures when someone close to us dies, understanding bereavement and loss

Death on the Spiritual Plane:

  • exploration of the philosophical perceptions and implications of death