My Story

My Story It is often that our own life stories become the teachers. My life changed with the death of three beloved family members. One focus is how Conscious Living and dying and Home Death Care changed these challenging experiences and allowed empowerment and healing.Another focus is the transforming of grief to stay open to love and life. My first husband Paul Bergh died suddenly of a cardiac arrest in 1995 at age 54. One year later, my daughter Kirsten and her friend Nina died in an auto accident which I survived with serious injuries. My second husband Jack Heckelman (we met 1998, married 2002) died of lung cancer in 2005. Being a part of a loving community open to support and conscious choices at these thresholds is a central part of this story.

Jack and My Story: 2004-5. This section tells our journey of meeting cancer consciously and openly, and living fully with both mainstream and alternative medicine; of opening a caring bridge website to keep in touch with friends around the country and world during these precious times, of Jack choosing to have his casket made by a niece, and choosing that he wanted a three day vigil as a part of his death planning; of being open to talk about dying and to celebrating life.

I met Jack in 1998, three years after the death of my first husband, and two years after the death of my daughter. It was wonderful to fall in love again. We were married in 2002. Two years later, August 2004, Jack was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Jack lived eight months after the cancer diagnosis. He consciously faced death and did everything he could to live. He created a video of his ethical will. He and I planned his after death care. Community members participated in all aspects.

The Caring Bridge website entries are all included here, and they show our journey, medically, emotionally, and spiritually.

It also includes stories from myself and community members about his dying at home with hospice, care for his body, the three day vigil, and cremation.

A national magazine, the Utne Reader, carried a story “No Regrets” about his journey. That story is included here.

Kirsten Bergh’s story and book After my daughter Kirsten Bergh died with her friend Nina Dietzel in a car accident in 1996, I published a book of her poetry and art as a way to share her spirit with friends and Family. This section tells her story, and has selections of her art and poetry. Her book is for sale.

.My writings This section will include my writings about loss, spirit, and the transformation of grief. Including Dragonfly stories…………… Spirit is always close in many formsI