For the past ten years as a hospice nurse, I have had a front row seat to the most honest moments of people’s lives.

I have talked with patients for hours, listened to families in private, and then found myself sitting in pew after pew at their funerals hearing the words everyone wished they had spoken sooner.

Over and over, I found myself thinking the same thing:

I wish the patient were here to hear this. I wish they could tell their own stories too.

Hadley House exists to shift the culture of end of life care.

What is missing is the space, the time, and the cultural permission to do this while someone is still alive. When someone is on hospice, we often have months where everyone knows what is coming, yet those months remain unacknowledged. Families are grieving already, caregivers are exhausted, and meaningful conversations get put off until after the person is gone.

That is why I began hosting Legacy Dinners. They create a setting where family and friends can gather, share stories, and let their person hear how deeply they are loved while they are still here to take it in. These dinners give people the chance to participate in their own memories, not be spoken about in the past tense.

And this mission goes further.
I also want to open nonprofit respite hospice houses where caregivers can rest, families can stay together, and Legacy Dinners can be part of the home itself. Caregivers are often the most overlooked people in the end of life experience, and they deserve support long before the funeral.

Legacy Dinners are how we begin that work now, and the hospice house is where this vision will grow in the future.

I believe that time before death deserves more attention, more support, and more intention.

To focus on the time before death, not just after.

To care for patients and the people caring for them.

To create moments of connection that families never forget.