EmilyFromStreetlight

Loss is a huge part of life. When you interact with people in the sunset of their lives loss is bound to occur. We deal with death as a team. We have a mantra in Streetlight that is "We Get to Carry Each Other." It is taken from the U2 song "One".

Whenever we lose a patient friend we gather together as a team to do what we call a "Memory Share". It's not a religious ceremony, (although members are free to share any passages or song lyrics meaningful to them) but more of a time to celebrate that patient in the way we hope that patient would want. We uplift memories about that person. Recently we did a potluck-style memory share for a patient who loved to cook. About 6 months ago when we knew that he wouldn't have much time left, one of his Streetlight friends began working with him on a collaborative Streetlight cookbook, including recipes he had written in the hospital and recipes from the Streetlight team members (family secrets and all). We presented the cookbook to him on his last birthday party in his home about a month before he passed. When we held our memory share we made recipes from the cookbook to share together in his memory.

For the families of our patients, we organize a "memory box" to be sent to each family 6 months to a year after each patient's death. The team as well as the other hospital staff (physicians, nursing, social work, etc) write down memories and reflections and we enclose those in a personalized, decorated memory box created by one of our friends at UF Arts in Medicine. It's a way we can extend our love and support to our families and let them know we're still carrying them with us.

It's wonderful to hear that your daughter is doing well. I think it's really admirable that she wants to use her experience in such a meaningful way. Our Streetlight members are all UF college students but if she would like to give back at Shands the VolunTEEN group may be a good avenue for her.

Here's a link to their page. https://ufhealth.org/volunteen

Not sure why you got downvoted!

Personally I am not as well-versed in Pokemon as my team, who dressed up as their favorite Pokemon characters for our Relay for Life theme. Check out their creativity here.

If I had to choose, I have a lot of respect for Cubone and how he dealt with his grief surrounding the loss of his mother. I think that loss actually makes us stronger and gives us opportunities for growth. Although a little graphic, he wears the skull of his mom in remembrance and in Streetlight, we strive to carry our patient friends and allow ourselves to be changed by their memories.

Good question. Every day is completely different. It all depends which patients are in. My job is a mixture of preparing our volunteers and also supporting our patients myself. When I get to work, I pull up the medical charts of the teenage and adult patients and check out what's going on with each person. That starts the trajectory of the day. Later in the day our volunteers come and we hold a meeting together to get them on the same page with who is in the hospital and how we can best support each person.

Right now we're gearing up to throw a Broadway-themed birthday party next week so we've been doing a lot of planning around that!

When I think about my most impactful experience, it's not so much what I've done but what I've received from those efforts.

One of my most impactful experiences featured a 19 year old guy with cancer. I met him in his last 6 weeks of life and his one last wish was to receive a "Heineken Party" on his deathbed (We did not provide the booze and couldn't drink with him of course). Myself and several other Streetlight volunteers went to his home for his last Friday night and spent the evening reflecting on stories of his childhood, watching Honey Badger YouTube videos, and laughing as we celebrated him with his family.

It was really refreshing to get to be a part of his last party and to know that death doesn't always have to come with sadness. I still keep in touch with his family and we see each other when we can.