Stan Goldberg

Stan Goldberg is a Professor Emeritus of Communicative Disorders at San Francisco State University. For over 25 years he taught, provided therapy, researched, and published in the area of information processing, loss, and change. Stan has published seven books, written numerous articles and delivered over 100 lectures and workshops throughout the United States, Latin America and Asia. He is currently working on a novel and a book on loss. He also consults on issues of personal, institutional, and corporate change. He has served as an expert legal witness in high-profile court cases and is a consulting editor for Oxford University Press. Stan leads workshops for adults whose lives were suddenly and traumatically changed. He serves at the bedside hospice volunteer in San Francisco for Pathways Home Health Care and Hospice. and is a featured columnist in the Hospice Volunteers of America quarterly magazine. His published magazine articles, essays, poems, and plays have received numerous national and international writing awards. Written with humor and sensitivity, they have appeared in magazines ranging from Psychology Today to Horse and Rider. His latest book is Lessons for the Living: Stories of Forgiveness, Gratitude, and Courage at the End of Life http://lessonsfortheliving.blogspot.com. It’s a memoir of his six years as a bedside hospice volunteer; an experience that taught him to accept his cancer and live fully, no matter how long that might be. He can be contacted at stan@stangoldbergwriter.com. Numerous downloadable articles appear on his website www.stangoldbergwriter.com

Articles:

Caregivers: We’re Not Mother Teresa

I’d been a bedside volunteer for more than five years; sitting with dying patients and their families once or twice a week for up to four continuous hours. Sometimes I stayed with patients overnight. Regardless how demanding my responsibilities, I knew that when I left the bedside, I’d have three to six days to “recover.” It was a time to prepare myself for next week’s activities that could range from cooking a meal, to witnessing a friend’s active dying. My downtime—something that allowed me to recharge my batteries—is a luxury many caregivers don’t have. I thought I understood what they […]

Music for my Relatives: Understanding Buchenwald

I thought about my father’s family tree as I drove from Prague to Weimer. Thirty-three relatives had died in Auschwitz, three had been liberated from Dachau, but nothing was written about Buchenwald, the concentration camp I would visit the next day, November 11th, 2010. It was Veterans Day in the United States and Armistice Day in Europe. I stood just inside the entrance and looked at the sign which could only be read by prisoners after they entered single-file through an iron door, giving the SS an opportunity to formally “initiate” them into the culture of Buchenwald. Jedum Das Seine. […]

I’m in Shock! But it’s Nothing Personal

It was the type of conversation we’ve all heard, and then thought, “I’d never do that!” In a small restaurant north of San Francisco, I heard a woman loudly complaining to a friend about the ingratitude of a relative. “I just don’t understand it,” the woman said. “I tried to be helpful. You know, her husband is in critical condition, and she just about bit my head off when I offered to help. You’d think she’d be more appreciative.” Emotional Shock Often the term “shock” is used to describe changes in a person’s behavior because of a traumatic event. Nineteen […]

Does Choosing How to Die Make a Difference?

If you could choose the way you will die, what would it be? Many people cavalierly answer “old age” or “in my sleep,” as if either of these answers will offer relief from an event they’ll do almost anything to avoid thinking about. But for some of us, the answers have less latitude and little humor. We have a better idea than most people what will do us in. In my case, it will most likely be prostate cancer, unless something else beats it to the punch. I often think about the deaths of patients I’ve served for the past […]

The Zen of Eating Cream of Wheat: A Journey Into Dementia

As a bedside hospice volunteer in San Francisco, I always have the choice of whether or not to accept an assignment. Some, I immediately know are right for me, such as sitting with a man my age who was estranged from his family and desperately wanted to reconnect with them. With others, especially those with advanced Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, I occasionally question whether the assignment makes sense—but not anymore. Joe was in this 80’s. His wife and son had died, and the only relative was a grandson whose schedule rarely allowed for visits to the care facility where […]

Thoughts As You Approach Your Own Death

How do we “know” something? How do we know anything? Our primary sources usually involve written documents or the spoken word, with information ranging from ludicrously false to probably true. Yet, most of the time, even the most “objective” information has a slight personal twist to it, placing a layer between it and us. What we know in these instances is what another source has said about it. Our “knowing” gains more credibility if we personally have witnessed or participated in something. It’s one thing to say “I read it,” and quite another to say “I saw it.” Most of […]

The Hard Work of Dying

Imagine that you’re preparing for a thirty-day trip to a foreign country and you’re limited to taking only what can be carried in a backpack. Your decisions on what to take or leave behind will determine the quality of your experience. Too many items and the weight will be burdensome. Not enough of the right ones and you might be forced to neglect some basic needs. We make decisions of this type daily. Take what’s important, leave behind what isn’t. But we tend to oblivious to the importance of these decisions for possibly the most momentous journey of our lives–our […]

Memories: A Call to Reconnect

Did you ever have a memory that rode into your consciousness on the back of a passing odor, object, or random word? It might have been something you desperately tried to forget, but it was able to seep through the protective wall you created as if it was made of cheesecloth. I knew I would have one of those experiences at the rededication of the Zen Hospice Project’s Guest House in San Francisco, the site seven years ago of my initial hospice training and service as a bedside volunteer. I entered the beautiful refurbished Victorian and roamed through the rooms […]

Helping Those in Pain Requires Acceptance, Compassion

A client who was dying once said to me, “Every day, I feel as if I’m on one of those exercise boards that rest on a ball. Just when I steady the damn thing, it starts moving and I’m struggling again to balance myself. Why don’t people realize that’s what my life has become?” I’ve heard similar descriptions for thirty years from clients and patients living with chronic and terminal illnesses. Many believed that not only did they have to deal with the effects of their illness, but also the unskillful acts of friends and loved ones who didn’t understand […]

The Insults of Aging: Why Young People Get it Wrong

Incredible things are heard when nobody thinks you’re listening. Recently, in downtown San Francisco, I was walking behind a 20-something–year-old couple. They were forced to reduce their fast pace as they approached an elderly man slowly walking in the same direction. Unable to go around him because foot traffic was heavy, they exchanged annoyed expressions, then imitated the elder gentleman’s halting movements. Eventually, he turned off on a side street and they resumed their pace. The young man turned to his girlfriend and said, “When I get that old, shoot me.” If he had asked me for help, I would […]

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