San Francisco Bay Area Chapter

Hospice & Palliative Nurses Association 

Reflective Writing for Self-Care

with author and poet James Crews

The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter invites you to a special experience of contemplation, creative expression, and self-care.

We are honored to host gifted poet James Crews to lead us in reflection of our practice, ourselves, and our purpose as we serve those with serious illness and their families.

Gather your coffee, favorite pen, and paper... 

All multidisciplinary healthcare workers are welcome for this special event!

Free Admission 

"Self-care is the cornerstone of good clinical practice... Self-care strategies help providers develop resiliency and sustainability"

- HPNA Core Curriculum for the Hospice and Palliative RN, 5th Edition

"The nurse owes the same duties to self as to others,  including the responsibility to...preserve wholeness of character and integrity"

- ANA Code of Ethics

A Zoom link will be sent by email to

attendees two days prior to the event. 

Not a San Francisco Bay Area Chapter Member?  Join today!

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Touch

We are changed

by the smallest gestures

of touch, as when

in my mother’s final days

I smoothed the loose

gray hairs back

from her face as she

shivered all over,

smiling with pleasure.

“Like a bolt of lightning

shooting through me,”

she said, the threads

of her mind beginning

to unravel, although

I think we both knew

she was talking about love.

- James Crews

Dear friends,

This poem is a very vulnerable one for me to share with all of you, about one of the last moments I spent with my mother in the hospital before she passed away. Nothing we write can ever truly hold the immensity of grief or the love we felt and still feel for another person. We have to release and give voice to what we feel, and yet we know over and over again that the poem or piece of writing will likely fall short in capturing the truth of a moment. We can perhaps only hope to recreate slivers and glimmers in words that honor our complex connection to the ones we have lost. Often, as in life, it is the “smallest gestures” that stay with us the most and transport us back in time.

Invitation for Writing & Reflection:

How have small gestures of touch affected you, especially given the fact that we lived through a pandemic when we were encouraged not to touch each other? What moments of affection still stay with you and bring you back in time, no matter how many years have passed?

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I write and share poetry that can be understood and appreciated by people of all ages and backgrounds. I believe that reading and writing can be gateways to kindness, gratitude, wonder, and joy—tools for slowing down and reflecting in a sped-up world. Through my courses, I help individuals become more centered and less stressed. I look forward to connecting with you!  —James Crews