The Bereavement Department in conjunction with leadership at Partners In Care is hosting a community group to explore messaging in Stephen Levine’s book A Year to Live through a series of monthly sessions in 2025 and early 2026.
In A Year to Live, Stephen Levine, author of the perennial bestseller Who Dies? teaches us how to live each moment, each hour, and each day mindfully—as if it were all that was left. On his deathbed, Socrates exhorted his followers to practice dying as the highest form of wisdom. Levine decided to live this way himself for an entire year, and now he shares with us how such immediacy radically changes our view of the world and forces us to examine our priorities.
Most of us go to extraordinary lengths to ignore, laugh off, or deny our grief over the fact that we are going to die, but preparing for death is one of the most rational and rewarding acts of a lifetime. It is an exercise that gives us the opportunity to deal with unfinished business and enter a new and vibrant relationship with life.
“What I’ve come to realize in my many years of working with death, dying, and grief is that nothing brings the recognition of how precious life is into perspective quite like confronting our own mortality,” stated Carla Purusa, Partners In Care grief counselor. “I am so very excited to share the program ‘A Year to Live’ because it invites us to reflect on our lives with urgency and purpose. It encourages us to embrace each moment, prioritize what truly matters, and live authentically, reminding us that life is precious and meant to be fully experienced.”
Levine provides us with this year-long program of intensely practical strategies and powerful guided meditations to help with this work, so that whenever the ultimate moment does arrive for each of us, we will not feel that it has come too soon.
“It is not simply about dying but about the restoration of the heart, which occurs when we confront our life and death with mercy and awareness. It is an opportunity to resolve our denial of death as well as our denial of life in a year-long experiment in healing, joy, and revitalization,” said author Stephen Levine.
Community members interested in the program must commit to the entire year. Groups are held on the first Saturday of each month beginning April 5 at 10am. Learn more about the specific program details at partnersbend.org/event/aytl. Registration is required; to register for this program, contact Carla Purusa at 541-771-3262 by March 21.
About Partners In Care:
Partners In Care is a local, independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization serving a 10,000-square-mile region of Central Oregon. It is now the leading provider of hospice, home health, and palliative care in the region, with over 200 staff members and nearly 200 volunteers. In addition to community Hospice care in homes, facilities, and Hospice House, Partners In Care also provides: Home Health in the patient’s home or care facility; Palliative Care symptom management and support; a non-medical case management program called Transitions; and Grief Support for adults and children experiencing a loss.
Partners In Care has achieved a five-star hospice and home health rating from patient and family surveys through CMS in 2024. The nonprofit is also a five-star We Honor Veterans national hospice partner (one of only three in the whole state of Oregon), selected by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization as a leader in caring for veterans’ unique needs at end of life. Partners In Care was also chosen by the Central Oregon community as the Bend Bulletin’s ‘Best of Bend’ hospice for 2024.
