For those new here, I’ve spent the past month highlighting the toxicity and dysfunction within Kiama Council, and it has drained my energy.
So its time to take a break and focus on taking Alex Reed’s advice and working on thriving
Dear readers, I invite you to stay with me on this blog journey as I turn my attention to the extraordinary humans in our community. People often tell me I write beautiful stories. Now feels like the right time to focus on the good in the world.
When I shared my article with Dr Barbato, he replied with this:
Thank you. You have captured the 30-minute talk perfectly. It is rare to meet someone who hears not only the words one speaks but also the deeper messages
“Show up. Shut up. Listen.”
The room was full. Locals had come together for the usual Lions Club dinner. But when Dr Michael Barbato, a retired palliative care expert, stood up to speak, something shifted.
The clatter of cutlery stopped. The room went quiet.
He came with carefully constructed slides. The kind that draw you in without saying too much. As one woman whispered, “He could teach a masterclass in how to use slides.”
Dr Barbato wasn’t there to give a typical health talk. He spoke with gentle authority and offered the kind of truth most of us spend a lifetime avoiding.
His message was confronting, but never cold. Comforting, without being sentimental.
We all know we’re going to die. But very few of us are ready to talk about it.
“We talk about politics and religion,” he said. “But not dying.”
That silence, he believes, is hurting us.
One story he shared has stayed with me, that of writer Cory Taylor, who died from cancer in 2016. In her final book Dying: A Memoir, Taylor didn’t say the worst part was pain. It was loneliness.
People didn’t know how to be with her. They didn’t know what to say. And so they said nothing.
Dr Barbato reminded us that just a few generations ago, most people died at home, surrounded by family. Now, we’re more likely to die in hospital, disconnected from the people who know us best.
And that, he says, is something we can change.
He spoke about the rise of End-of-Life Doulas – trained companions who support dying people and their families with presence, care and calm. He explained how pain relief is essential not just for physical comfort, but for emotional peace. “When people are in pain,” he said, “all their energy goes to their body. Only when pain is controlled can they start to process the rest.”
But what moved the room most deeply was what he shared next, stories of End-of-Life Visions and Dreams.
A little girl who smiled at something unseen just before she passed.
A woman who dreamed of packed bags and a waiting boat, though no one had told her she was dying.
A young man who saw a visitor named Trent sitting at his bedside.
These experiences, Dr Barbato said, aren’t delusions. They are not side effects of medication or confusion. They are part of the dying process, and they happen more often than most people realise.
“Eighty to one hundred per cent of dying people experience them,” he told us. “And they matter. They bring peace. They open space for conversation, for love, for letting go.”
But what many people remember most from his talk wasn’t a statistic or a vision. It was this:
“The job of visitors is simple. Show up. Shut up. Listen. Be the friend you have always been. These people are living, not dying.”
And truth-telling, he added, doesn’t mean forcing people to acknowledge the end. It means giving them room to talk about dying – if and when they’re ready.
“If they’re not speaking about it,” he said, “they’re not in denial. They’re doing what they need to do.”
Before closing, he shared a story from his own childhood, a near-death experience at age seven, and the moment he watched a dying patient suddenly sit upright, arms outstretched, just minutes before passing.
His final words were simple.
The dying don’t need pity. They don’t need performance.
They need presence.
They need permission.
And they need peace.
#PalliativeCare #EndOfLifeCare #DyingWell #DrMichaelBarbato #PeacefulPassing #Kiama