Homestead Hospice Home Closed (Owatonna) 8.23.2023

 Homestead Hospice Home is a hospice home in Owatonna, MN, which served the Owatonna area for 18 years, staffed by Allina Hospice.  Sadly, Allina will no longer be staffing HHH as of 8.21.2023 due to low census.  There are no words to describe the experiences had in these eight rooms over the past 18 years, but they are special rooms which hosted many holy and sacred moments.  These photos were taken on 8.23.2023 after a ceremony honoring the staff who served at HHH.  There is hope that the HHH will re-open with a new agency.










AS (When we see too much)

As with any post that relates to my hospice work - in order to not get anywhere close to violating HIPPA - I keep information about patient-related art to a bare minimum.  This self portrait is a reaction to a very difficult patient situation, with the tubes representing the visuals that go into our eyes. 

All the tubing used here was picked up personally after patients passed away to help families dispose of unneeded extra supplies.  As even sealed tubing cannot be given to another patient, I used some of this tubing to create this portrait.  I have since (through one of the other hospice chaplains I work with) found a place in Minneapolis/St.Paul called Mano a Mano that takes these kinds of supplies as donations and send them around the world.