Held with Grace - AU

13/05/2026

Something worth sharing from Go Gently Australia.
4 out of 5 people who choose Voluntary Assisted Dying in Australia also receive palliative care.
Not instead of it. Alongside it.
This is the part of the conversation that often gets lost. VAD and palliative care are not opposites. They are not at war with each other. For most people who choose VAD, palliative care is already holding them. VAD is simply one more option available to them at the very end.Options and choices. That is what this is about.
If you are navigating a terminal diagnosis and want to understand what is available to you, this is exactly the kind of conversation I have every day.
heldwithgrace.com.au · 0426 670 402

Go Gentle’s 2026 State of VAD report is now available. Click the link or visit our website to read the report 👉https://ow.ly/6XfE50YRqGG

13/05/2026

A few weeks ago I shared a post about Advance Care Directives, the document that records, in your own words, what medical treatment you'd want or refuse if you couldn't tell anyone yourself.

This carousel is about the other two documents that go alongside it. The ones most people miss. The ones I'd argue matter even more, because without them, even a beautifully written ACD can sit in a drawer with no-one legally allowed to use it.

The first is a Medical Treatment Decision Maker.

This is the person you've legally named to speak for your body when you can't. To consent to treatment. To refuse it. To hold the medical system to what you wrote down.

If you don't name one, Victorian law has a default order. Spouse first. Then adult child. Then parent. Then sibling. Sometimes that's exactly the right person. Sometimes it absolutely is not — the estranged sibling, the new partner the family doesn't trust, the adult child who can't bear to make the call. By the time it matters, you can't change it.

The second is an Enduring Power of Attorney.

This is the person you've legally named to manage your life if you can't. Pay your bills. Keep your house. Manage your bank accounts and tenants and tax. The MTDM speaks for your body. The EPOA speaks for your life. They are not the same job, and they don't have to be the same person.

Most families I work with end up choosing differently for each. The person who knows your values around treatment is often not the person who is good with paperwork. That's fine. You can name different people for different jobs.

Three documents.

One, what you want medically (Advance Care Directive).
Two, who speaks for your body (Medical Treatment Decision Maker).
Three, who manages your life (Enduring Power of Attorney).

All free or low-cost. All legal in Victoria. All take one afternoon. All last a lifetime.

I sit at kitchen tables and help people put all three in place. In their own words. No legal jargon. No rush. If your family is overseas or you're not in Melbourne, we can do this online the documents are just as valid.

Call or text 0426 670 402. I return calls within 24 hours.

Lisa
, heldwithgrace.com.au

10/05/2026

If you haven't watched this week's Australian Story, please do. It is one of the most honest, generous, and human pieces of television I have seen about dying.
James Valentine spent his final year doing what he had always done. Showing up. Telling the truth. And this time, the truth was about dying.
He was given two different treatment options by two different doctors. Two experts, two completely different paths. He had to choose. Most people in that moment have no one to help them think it through. No one to sit with them and ask what actually matters to them. What they are willing to trade, and what they are not.
James chose to keep his oesophagus. He kept making radio. He kept playing jazz. He had what his partner Joanne called a year of living gratefully.
When the cancer came back, inoperable and incurable, he chose Voluntary Assisted Dying.
He said it was a relief to know it was there. To cut out the suffering at the very end. His partner Joanne said his death was gentle and beautiful.
That is what options and choices look like in practice. Not an ideology. Not a political position. A person, in their own home, dying on their own terms, surrounded by the people they love.
This is the conversation Australia needs to keep having. James Valentine made sure of that.
If you are navigating a diagnosis and don't know where to start, this is exactly what I am here for.
heldwithgrace.com.au · 0426 670 402

05/05/2026

A family friend had a stroke a few weeks ago.

She's in her seventies. Lives alone. Her closest family is overseas. She has friends who love her, who've shown up at the hospital every day, but she has no documents in place. None.

She can't speak for herself yet. She's bed-bound. She's been moved to rehab, and now the friends who love her are trying to navigate the next steps with no legal authority to make any of them.

They can't make medical decisions for her, because she never named anyone to do that.
They can't manage her finances, because she never gave anyone power of attorney.
They don't know what treatment she would want or refuse, because she never wrote it down.

The hospital staff are doing their best. The friends are doing more than their best, they're running themselves into the ground. But love is not a legal document. And in a system that requires legal documents to act, love alone leaves everyone stuck.

This is why I do the work I do. Not because death is the only thing that takes your voice. A stroke can. A fall can. Dementia can. And when it does, the system needs to know three things, in writing, that you decided when you still could:

One. An Advance Care Directive. What medical treatment you accept, and what you refuse.

Two. A Medical Treatment Decision Maker. The person you've legally named to speak for you when you can't. This is the one most people miss. An ACD says what you want. A decision maker is who carries it out.

Three. An Enduring Power of Attorney. The person you've legally named to manage your money and affairs if you can't.

Three documents. All free or low-cost. All legal in Victoria. All protect the people who love you from being trapped in a system that won't let them help.

If your family lives far away, or your closest people aren't blood relatives, this is more important, not less. Don't leave the people who love you with nothing to stand on.

I sit at kitchen tables and help people put all three in place. In their own words. No legal jargon. No rush. If your family is overseas or you're not in Melbourne, we can do this online, the documents are just as valid.

Call or text 0426 670 402. I return calls within 24 hours.

Lisa
, heldwithgrace.com.au

28/04/2026

The number one thing I hear from families after a death is this:

"We didn't know we had a choice."

They didn't know they could say no to a treatment. They didn't know they could bring their person home. They didn't know Voluntary Assisted Dying was an option. They didn't know they could have someone at the bedside who was there just for them.

If you are the person in your family who is holding it all together right now, managing the appointments, navigating the aged care system, making the calls, showing up, this is for you.

You don't have to do it alone. And there are more options and choices available to you than anyone has probably told you.

That is what I do. I sit with people in this. I walk alongside them. I make sure nothing important gets missed.

The first conversation is free.

0426 670 402 · heldwithgrace.com.au

28/04/2026

I once sat with a woman who had been told she had weeks to live.

She was in hospital. She hated it. The lights, the noise, the feeling of being managed rather than cared for.

Nobody had asked her what she wanted.

When I sat down with her and asked, really asked, she knew immediately. She wanted to go home. She wanted her dog on the bed. She wanted her daughter to play guitar. She wanted the curtains open so she could see the garden.

She died at home three weeks later. Dog on the bed. Daughter playing. Curtains open.

That is what options and choices look like in practice.

Nobody should leave this world without being asked what they want.

If someone you love is facing the end of life and nobody has asked them what they want, I can help with that.

heldwithgrace.com.au