We honor Father's Day Weekend with this Friday's Special Edition, giving you time to reflect on and share articles today and through the weekend. 

For all who have fathers ... whether alive or deceased ... you will always be his son or daughter ...
For all who are fathers ... whether your children are alive or have died ... you will always be their dad ...

For our readers who provide professional care to families, we share with you these dad-stories about serious illness, hospice, and grief. Some are new. Some are memorable replays from this past year.

More personally, we send support to you through whatever this Father's Day holds for you at this time and ahead.

Celebrating Father’s Day when Dad is on hospice 
Roze Room Hospice, Culver City, CA; retrieved from www.rozeroom.org on 6/12/25
Father’s Day is often synonymous with backyard cookouts, gifts, cards and large family gatherings. Honoring your father or a father figure means celebrating the role this important person has played in your life. It can be a sentimental day where we slow down and consider the gift this person has been in our lives. But if your father is in hospice care, Father’s Day can take on even more significance. You may believe the day will be filled with sadness and unease. But truly capturing this day will be a gift to your dad and all those who love him. Here are five ways to celebrate Father’s Day when your dad is on hospice.

• Live in the Moment. ... [Click on the title's link for these rich descriptions.]
• Say What’s in Your Heart. ...
• Gather Loved Ones. Celebrate his life! ...
• Bucket List It. ...
• It’s About Quality of Life. ...

Celebrating Father’s Day when Dad is on hospice can be enriching. It gives us the opportunity to celebrate and express the role our fathers have played in our lives. When time becomes limited, Father’s Day carries even more impact. It’s important to grab this precious day as fully as you can, despite his illness. Celebrating will empower your dad and all those who love him to regain what really matters — time together to focus on the beauty of his life.
Editor's note: Thank you Roze Room Hospice for these inspiring ways to embrace both living and dying in deeply personal, meaningful ways. Calling hospice leaders / readers: Please share this with your interdisciplinary team members who will provide patient/family care today and through this weekend. 

Celebrating Father’s Day after your Dad has passed 
Delaware Hospice, Milford, DE; retrieved from www.delawarehospice.org on 6/12/25 
The days leading up to Father’s Day can be difficult for those who have lost a father. Father’s Day is surrounded by consumerism—and seeing all the commercials, greeting cards, and restaurant specials can be emotionally overwhelming. The holiday can be especially hard for those experiencing their first Father’s Day without their dad, and they may be tempted to avoid the holiday altogether. However, Father’s Day doesn’t have to be about gifts or grilling out with Dad. There are still many ways to celebrate, remember, and honor your father this Father’s Day, even if he is no longer physically with you.

• Share stories about your dad ...
• Send a card or spend time with other father figures in your life ...
• Spend time with your dad ...
• Find a simple, and even fun, way to remember your dad ...
• Acknowledge your grief and deal with it on your own time ...

Father keeping a promise to son to 'never miss a baseball game' despite entering hospice 
Fox 13 - Tampa Bay, FL; by Briona Arradondo; 1/30/25 
A father diagnosed with cancer left hospice Thursday to spend the evening making final memories with his family on a baseball diamond in Tampa. Family and friends surrounded Steve Uhal and his wife Amy with love and support as he arrived to see his 9-year-old son Charlie play one last game.  ... 

College Station store hosts Hospice Brazos Valley’s benefit this Father’s Day 
KBTX, Bryan, TX; by Abigail Truman; 6/9/25
This Father’s Day, Hospice Brazos Valley is partnering with Murdoch’s Ranch and Home to encourage families to spend their holiday with classic cars, barbecue, and supporting a good cause. Guys, Gears, and Grills is an event that gives you a chance to do all of dad’s favorites while raising money to support Brazos Valley Hospice. “We’re the only nonprofit hospice in the Brazos Valley, meaning we’ll never send you a bill... And we gave over $250,000 in complementary care last year,” Collen Broussaurd with Brazos Valley Hospice explained its mission.

Bo-Hawg & Evermore, a love story & a fish fry: A deep-fried meaning found in grief 
Evermore Newsletter - "Community, Family, Grief"; 6/9/25 
Grease popping, no breeze, standing in direct sunlight, lifting coolers with 50 pounds of grouper, hands coated in cornmeal and batter, and a heat index of 107. Ah, those were the days. That’s what it was like cooking seafood with my pops. My man LOVED this. A big reason is because he did this with his dad growing up. Later in life they began volunteering their services (and fish) as a way to help raise money for youth sports in our hometown. They would fry grouper, boil peanuts, boil shrimp — you name it, they did it. So, it was only natural that my siblings and I grew up sharing this tradition with him.  ... [Click on the title to continue reading this inspiring father-son story about both volunteering and coping with grief.]

New Hampshire woman’s father dies in hospice care [in fire evacuation zone] when California fires broke out 
CBS News WBZ, Boston, MA / YouTube; 1/15/25, published in our newsletter 1/15/25
Just two hours before the fire evacuation--Merle Fetter--Barbara's husband of 64 years died in Royal Oaks Hospice Care, with Barbara holding his hand until the end . … As the fire moved through Altadena towards Monrovia Barbara was forced to leave Merrill's body, unable to be evacuated. ... [Daughter in New Hampshire:]  “I didn't know where my mother was. I didn't know what happened to my father's body.” Barbara's daughter—Joy—thousands thousands of miles away in New Hampshire couldn't fly to Los Angeles until Friday. When she finally landed she received a reassuring call from Royal Oaks her mom was OK and her father's remains taken to the coroner's office. Staff feel like residents here are their family. 

To Be or To Do? Women and Men's different styles of grieving
Composing Life Out of Loss; by Joy Berger; retrieved from the internet 6/12/25
The terms "Intuitive and Instrumental" styles of grieving were identified by grief researchers and clinicians Ken Doka and Terry Martin in their groundbreaking book, Grieving Beyond Gender: Understanding the Ways Men and Women Mourn. This 6-minute video for persons grieving a loss simplifies this into my phrase, "To Be or To Do? Perhaps THAT Is the Question." 

Couple marry in ICU an hour before bride’s father takes his last breath 
Our Community Now, North Providence, RI; by OCN staff; 8/22/24, published in our newsletter 9/1/24
A Rhode Island hospital held an emergency wedding that had to be performed before the bride’s father died from muscular dystrophy. Sabrina Silveira-DaCosta says her father, 58-year-old Frank Silveira, was Portuguese-born and raised, a serious chef and a five-star dad. ... With Silveira’s health rapidly declining, his family realized he wasn’t going to make it his daughter’s wedding on Sep. 7, so plans changed. “Everyone was able to bring the wedding to him in the hospital, and he got to walk me down the aisle,” Silveira-DaCosta said. From his intensive care unit bed, Silveira escorted his daughter down the hospital hallway Monday into the hands of her fiancé, Sam DaCosta. ... Silveira-DaCosta’s father died about an hour after he walked her down the aisle. “It’s very complex. It’s a lot of emotion. Our community hospitals don’t get enough credit because any big hospital couldn’t have done this for us,” she said.

Families, volunteers share stories of finding peace through hospice: Hospice "allowed her to just be a daughter to her father as he was dying" 
Salina Post; by Cristina Janney, Hays Post; 6/29/24; posted in our newsletter 7/2/24
This is a two-part series on hospice care in northwest Kansas. Dalene Juenemann and her father, Dean, had to make the difficult decision to enter hospice care after he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. “He was just such a social guy and someone was in a couple times a week,” she said. “They were checking in on him and it was that security blanket he had.” ... He didn’t want to go through aggressive chemo and he didn’t qualify for a bladder removal because of his age. “He chose quality of life,” she said. "It was that final decision that we are done with everyone wanting a piece of me. I'm just going to enjoy life," she said. Dalene's father, Dean Shearer, was a patient of NWKareS, Hospice of Northwest Kansas, which serves 16 counties from Interstate 70 to the Nebraska border and Trego County to the Colorado border. ... She said the extra care hospice offered allowed her to just be a daughter to her father as he was dying. [Click on the title's link to continue reading stories from families and volunteers at NWKAreS.]

Grandad rehearsed his funeral 10 years ago – Now his final wishes come true after his passing 
Good News Network; 7/28/24; published in our newsletter 8/1/24
A British senior who pre-planned his funeral and rehearsed it on TV in 2013, had his final wishes come true after peacefully passing away in June. Malcolm Brocklehurst, who is a renowned aircraft expert, commissioned an orange airplane-shaped coffin ten years ago from Crazy Coffins, an offshoot of a Nottingham-based traditional coffin and urn maker in England that helps people customize their funeral. The grandfather-of-nine was filmed sitting in the coffin on Channel 5’s Bizarre Burials, which also featured a rehearsal of the ceremony that the former aerospace engineer coordinated to the last detail. The plane was aptly called Tango One and numbered with MB 1934—his initials and year of his birth. He also announced that he wanted the funeral procession to leave from the stadium pitch where his favorite football team, Blackpool FC, plays. ... But speaking about the rehearsal in 2013, he said it was all “light-hearted fun.” 

Shameless star Justin Chatwin had a pivotal Law & Order role in a heartbreaking episode 
NBC; by Jill Sederstrom; 1/30/25, published in our newsletter 2/4/25
Attorney Nolan Price found himself at odds with his brother, played by Chatwin, as the siblings were forced to make a painful decision. ... Justin Chatwin — who rose to fame on the hit comedy-drama series Shameless — took on the role of Thomas Price, the brother of Executive Assistant District Attorney Nolan Price, in “The Hardest Thing" episode, which premiered on January 30, 2025. The siblings disagreed about how to handle their father’s failing health. ... The brothers had to decide whether they wanted to put in a feeding tube, which could prolong their dad’s life by a few months, or “manage his pain levels” to “make his passing as comfortable as possible," a doctor explained. 

My dad had an Advance Directive. He still had to fight to die 
Newsweek - My Turn; by Maggie Schneider Huston; 8/26/24, published in our newsletter 8/27/24
My mom died peacefully. My dad died 72 days later, angry at the doctors for ignoring his wishes. ... Dad had heart surgery on December 20, 2023. An hour after the surgery ended, his vital systems started shutting down. A cascade of interventions, one after another, kept him alive. Four days later, he said: "Put me on hospice." The doctor dismissed this request, rolling his eyes and saying: "Everyone on a ventilator says that." On Christmas Day, my father asked for hospice again. He was in pain. He knew his recovery would be long and ultimately futile. He would never have an acceptable quality of life again. ... Dad's care team insisted palliative care was the same as hospice care, but he knew the difference. He wanted hospice care. Finally, they reluctantly agreed and called for a social worker to make arrangements. It wasn't necessary. Once they removed his treatment and relieved his pain, he died five hours later. ... 
Editor's Note: This article is not about Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD). It is about honoring Advance Directives, person-centered care with communications and actions related to "palliative" vs. "hospice" care. Pair this with other posts in our newsletter today, namely "Improving post-hospital care of older cancer patients."

Corby boy, 10, set for Arctic trek in tribute to father
BBC News, by Kate Bradbrook & Brian Farmer; 2/2/24, published in our newsletter 2/2/24 and 12/24/24
A 10-year-old boy once told he might never walk can look forward to days of "wonder" as he prepares to trek in the Arctic in memory of his late father. Caeden, who has cerebral palsy, was born 12 weeks early. But Caeden, of Corby, Northamptonshire, has climbed Ben Nevis and is now set to meet the Arctic challenge. Mountain guide John Cousins said the "biggest danger in such conditions comes from the cold". Caeden is due to travel to Sweden on Monday with mother Lisa, brother Ashton, 12, and sister Khya, 14.

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me. ~ Jim Valvano