20 New Year’s Dont’s for The Sick and Bedridden: Part 3

1.     Don’t overstay your welcome and pull from the minimal energies they have to sustain their life. 90 minutes is as long as they can tolerate at any one sitting. 2.     Don’t Chatter and talk to fill the silence. Let void and space be OK. 3.     Don’t fill their space with YOUR holiday traditions. Be […]

11 Precious Holiday Gifts You Can Give The Sick and Bedridden: Part 2

It may be cold outside but for the sick and bedridden their room is constantly warm, often stuffy, sterile or claustrophobic. They have acclimated to the slower pace, the regimented schedule, the various smells, the bland tastes, and the noise of painful calls for a nurse from neighboring rooms, while they bask under the yellowish […]

20 Precious Holiday Gifts You Can Give The Sick and Bedridden: Part I

He’s all by himself on Christmas in that depressing assisted living center. You feel bad for him. But you’ve got your own family to think of and all the stressors of the season to go with it. And it is all on your shoulders: the food, the gifts, the decorations, parties and the thank-yous. Plus, […]

Heaven’s Passport

Ninety-eight year old Harry wanted to make sure his spirit could recognize his deceased loved ones who passed over into heaven once he arrived. I guess you would call what he put in his Prayer Pocket a ‘Heaven’s Passport’. He wanted to make sure there was no mistake and he could control his fate in […]

Like A Weed Through Concrete: A Dedication to Philip Seymour Hoffman

Drug overdoses are like suicides. They are a needless waste of human life. They make us feel sad, angry and helpless. They leave us in shock with the unexplainable. We ask ourselves where did they cross the line from instant gratification to self destruction? When does enough become enough? What made them seek their edges, […]

Bury Tales: Death By any Other Name

Death By Any Other Name By Dr. Aviva Boxer, OMD Just mentioning the word ‘Death’ makes even the most callous of persons stop in their tracks and pause with the dear-in-the-headlights look before they can collect their thoughts and then respond.  To circumvent this problem we have come up with many ways to say death. […]

Bury Tales: Cause of Death Then and Now

Cause of Death Then and Now: It’s All Relative The leading causes of Death in London in 1665, when statistical data was just beginning to be collected, were documented on what was called “Bills of Mortality”. The tabulation on the leading causes of death was collected at the height of the Black Plaque. Compare it […]

Bury Tales: Are You A Grave Groupie?

Are You A Grave Groupie? By Dr. Aviva Boxer, OMD The Kabbalists believe if you sleep on the grave of the deceased on the anniversary of the day that they died you will gain access to all the skills and knowledge that the deceased had in their lifetime. They believe that the deceased soul comes […]

If You Want to be Happy and You Know It, Then Cry

By Dr. Aviva Boxer, OMD The formula for a blockbuster film always includes a sad moment that produces tears. There is a reason for this, and it is not what you think. Ever notice how close you feel about a date after seeing a movie that makes you cry? That is because scientists (1) have […]

Under The Flag on The 4th of July

UNDER THE FLAG: CELEBRATING FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS By Dr. Aviva Boxer, OMD I can see all the thousands of American Flags grounded into the graves of hundreds of thousands of soldiers buried in the Arlington National Cemetery. What a glorious sight on this fourth of July: the birthday of our freedom. All those […]