Here is an overview of the Workshop’s five sessions. All sessions share the same format. They are book-ended by a brief meditative moment and conclude with a poem. Each session will illuminate a different aspect of the end of life and the choices we may have. While participants receive a folder with printed material, booklets, videos, and images, the main focus of the workshops is on conversations and the sharing of ideas, experiences, and reactions.
Session A Why are You Here?
Getting to know each other.
Have you experienced the death of a person?
How do you imagine your own death?
Session B Getting your Affairs in Order
Conversation starter guides
POLST, Health Care Proxy, Advance Directive
Ethical Will
Session C The Long Goodbye
What matters to you, not what’s the matter with you.
Dealing with dementia
Session D Finishing Strong
What happens before death? Signs of approaching death
Where to die? Hospital, nursing home, hospice, home.
Medical Aid In Dying, VSED
After the last breath: burial or cremation, body donation
Session E Grieving
Write your own obituary
Grieving, loss, and the rest of the world
Sign up for the next workshop sponsored by the CANCER CONNECTION on
January 12 - February 9, 2027
To sign up or join the waitlist, please contact Cancer Connection.
This free workshop is for individuals in treatment, recovery, survivorship, or caregiving roles. Registration through Cancer Connection is required. If you are not sure about qualifying for the free workshop, please call Cancer Connection on 413-586-1642 to register, or, if you are already a Cancer Connection participant, you can use this link to register.
Thank you for your interest of talking and thinking together about the end of our lives.
No one will be refused for inability to pay. All welcome, regardless of age, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ethnicity, and national origin, range of abilities, sexual, and affectional orientation, financial means, education, religion, and political perspective.