Tambre Leighn

Tambre Leighn is a published author, speaker, and outspoken patient/caregiver advocate. Her background as a professional athlete and her personal experience caregiving for her late husband along with her struggles with grief-related depression after being widowed inspired Tambre to become a coach. After years of coaching individual clients, she now provides consulting and training to healthcare organizations to improve the patient and caregiver experience. In her down time, she enjoys dancing Argentine Tango and writing.

Articles:

Caregiver Remorse: 3 Ways to Find Peace

I’ve not yet met a fellow caregiver who, at some point, hasn’t expressed at least one regret…maybe more. Caregiving can be extremely rewarding and challenging. The rewards are pretty clear. On the challenging side, there is care delivery. Caregivers end up on the front lines providing services that, in the past, have been in the hands of trained healthcare practitioners. Patients are moved home at a faster rate out of hospitals and treatment centers often leaving injections, wound care, medication oversight, and more in the hands of the family. Another challenge that weighs on caregivers are the medical care decisions especially, […]

Holiday Letter to a Young Widow

Dearest Heart, This season reminds me of endings, but also of a December long ago that was a beginning. After one of the most challenging periods of Gary’s cancer and time at an alternative clinic, he returned looking much healthier. With both of us rested, we could breathe, share a beautiful Christmas, and re-embrace each other and our marriage. We were more in love than ever. It was also the beginning of the end. Sometimes, it’s best not to know. If the me that’s now thirteen Christmases without Gary could whisper in your ear, I would share some insights to […]

Beyond Williams and Rivers, the Everyday Superstars: The Caregivers

Over the past few weeks, we’ve lost two major comedic forces, Robin Williams and Joan Rivers, both of whom brought great joy and laughter to our world. Accolades and impact statements have flooded the Internet, along with heartfelt condolence messages. How wonderful for their families to feel this outpouring of love and respect. Yet away from the bright lights of Hollywood, every day, thousands of families experience the loss of loved ones ~ through suicide, tragic accidents, and illness. Often these families have made great sacrifices to care for their loved ones. Medical bills have crushed them. Mounds of insurance […]

Honoring Robin Williams

Experiencing sadness or grief can come from feeling that something is missing, something has been lost. When you think about someone now gone who inspired you, made a difference in your life – or, like Robin Williams, someone who made you laugh – ask what qualities of that person you can embrace. Perhaps it is Robin’s compassion, his humor, his creativity, or his spontaneity. Choose the quality you most admire and now ask: How can I bring that into my life more each day in honor of him and to make the world a better place? This, I believe, is […]

Widow Copes with Holidays by Serving Herself, Others

Here it comes…and every year, earlier than ever…the dreaded arrival of the holiday television commercials. In my world, retailers hoping to extend the buying season are simply extending the length of time I have to try to ignore the sadness this time of year still stirs up ,even nine years later. I’d love to fast forward from October to January. This way, I would miss the passing of another wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years without my late husband. Instead, I have had to find workarounds. My first Christmas without Gary, it was easy to opt out of celebrating. Everyone […]

Healing Through Art: One With the Universe

It was the last painting. I didn’t see it until it was done. When Gary finally unveiled the long canvas, there were no words. I hoped the tears in my eyes communicated the beauty I saw in the piece. He named it One With the Universe. It was like his reconciliation with God…his embracing of everything in his life…the love, the creativity, the illness and whatever was to come. There was power and peace in the colors and the image. A quiet strength…the kind it would, I imagined, later take to hide from me the fact his cancer diagnosis was […]

Husband’s Art During Illness Reflects Days of Hope

In the early days of painting in the basement of our Vancouver rental, my husband’s canvases were filled with darker colors and hues. The small lower left corner often harbored the hope.This is where you could find the brighter tones, pushing up the dark curtain that bore down heavily. We were less than a third of the way through Gary’s battle with Hodgkins Disease. Some people resist this war terminology and I understand why, but the way Gary came at his illness with everything he had is the most accurate depiction of our story. He fought every step of the […]

Nine Years Later, She Savors Visits to ‘The Missing Place’

There are days and times and moments in between the larger slices of my life I find myself in the missing place. I have made incredible strides recreating myself after the death of my husband Gary. I learned to stand on my own two feet and have done so now for nearly a decade. I enjoy my independence and my freedom. I am accountable to no one but me. I choose every step in my path and every moment in my day. Yet there are the quiet times when a memory surfaces and I cannot help but go to that […]

The Healing Power of Creativity

When my late husband and I first began dating, he set clear boundaries with regard to his time. Sundays during football season were off limits. He was an avid fan and pretty good at picking the spreads. Saturday mornings were dedicated to painting out on the back patio of his sparsely furnished West Hollywood apartment. So he was pleasantly surprised to find out that I loved football and I, too, had interests I wished to continue to nurture outside of our relationship. As our lives unfolded and we moved from dating to marriage, from a rental in West Hollywood to […]