Palliative care in Wagga at the Forrest Centre and Amaranth Foundation

At the Forrest Centre Hospice in Wagga, they care for the terminally ill, helping them to live up until the day when they no longer can.

"I love my job but some days are hard," Ms Turner said. "I think, 'these could be my parents', so I look after them as if they are."

Ms Turner started in palliative care only five years ago but spent two decades before that as a nurse. Meanwhile, Ms Tellus has been in the industry for 31 years.

"I was interested in geriatric nursing early on. I didn't have the connection with the younger [patients]," Ms Tellus said.

"I was drawn to older people. Their life experience, many had been through significant events, the Holocaust, the Great Depression."

Lorraine Black is one of the seven residents currently under Ms Turner and Ms Tellus' care at the Forrest Centre.

She moved into the hospice only two weeks ago, after her health deteriorated to the point that she felt she needed full-time care to take the pressure off her three sons and two grandsons.

"It was hard leading up to the decision to move here. I thought my boys couldn't do without me at home. But then I realised that staying at home made a lot more work for them caring for me. I felt relief once I made the decision to move here," Ms Black said.

"I can tell by the tone in their voice that they are at ease with me being a resident at The Forrest Centre Hospice."

Ms Turner's decision to move into the palliative care field was precipitated by the death of her own father. At that time, she was working as a dementia care nurse.

The benefit of palliative care, she found, was not solely for the one who was dying. There is also a great ministry needed for those who will be left behind.

"I've lost my parents, I know how it felt and I try to give the family the compassion and empathy I needed then," Ms Turner said.

"A lot of the time, families have questions they feel like they can't ask. Is mum in pain? How long will it be [before they die]. You're there to answer the questions if you can, and if you can't you tell them you will do your best to find out."

Similarly, the CEO of the Amaranth Foundation in Wagga, Julianne Whyte, first experienced the world of palliative care when she confronted her father's death in 2011.

Since then, she has become passionate about having conversations concerning death.

"Why should talking about death be a 'difficult conversation' as they always say," Ms Whyte said.

"We've got to reframe it. I want to change the whole language around 'difficult conversations' or 'tricky conversations' to 'rich and meaningful conversations'."

Ms Whyte started up the Amaranth Foundation in Wagga in the hopes of helping those with terminal illnesses learn how to live and die well.

Death, she says, is one moment but we are all living to die and the way a person lives will inform the legacy they leave.

"A question that I love to ask is what part of you is not affected by the disease that you've got," Ms Whyte said. "You know you're dying but what part of you is not dying?"

Imagining a wall of photographs depicting the person's life in its entirety, Ms Whyte asks her clients, where the focal point lies.

"Where do you stop and gaze," she asks. "What do you feel when you see that? It's what matters to you.

"I remember I did this with my dad, I said 'what stands out in your life so that I can understand you more now that you're dying'."

The story he told stopped his daughter in surprise.

One Christmas, he recalled though laughter, his family had gathered for an egg-and-spoon race at his home. While locked in fierce competition, he tore his hamstring.

"Dad said it was the best event because he said everybody was there, he was a centre of attention which he loved [...] And he said, 'I just felt this was family. This was fun and family'," she said.

"Why did that stand out, why didn't he tell me about his travel log, or what he'd done or what was on his CV? What he wanted me to know was what mattered to him, and that was when he tore his hammy trying to beat his 12-year-old grandson in the egg-and-spoon race."

Hearing the story, she knew it was one she would share at his eulogy and it is that one conversation that her colleague, Sharon Lucas, believes made all the difference to the family's capacity to grieve.

A former funeral director and police officer, Ms Lucas has spent a lifetime watching as grief unfolds.

"You can tell the people that have been guided [by their loved one] like Julianne was," Ms Lucas said.

"They [the dying person] used to come in [to the funeral home] and they'd have everything organised. They'd have the photos, the music they wanted, and you could tell they were struggling but they took ownership of it."

Learning from that experience, Ms Whyte has made sure the main focus for her clients is on balancing the priority to live while acknowledging the inevitability of death.

"People sometimes see that talking about death and dying is negative, or it's giving up," Ms Whyte said.

"We can have conversations but not dwell and bring about a sense of hopelessness and despair because that's what you don't want to do."

Through the years of her work, Ms Whyte has found every single person has the courage to face death with grace. After all, it is something each person will face eventually.

"I've often talked to people about resilience and strength so that you know, if they're facing a hurdle or a challenge, how did they deal with that previously," Ms Whyte said.

"Dying is really just another stressful uncertain event where there's an uncertain outcome and it's an uncertain time frame. So how do you deal with uncertainty? You don't have to talk about death in order to talk about dying.

"Death is everybody's business. Grief and loss is everybody's business."

For those who stand beside the dying, their final moments are a privilege to witness. In death, their stories are interlocked.

To honour the passing of each resident, the Forrest Centre hosts a memorial service twice a year.

Coming together, the staff and families reminisce on their shared time together, however fleeting it may have proven.

The patients and their carers become a part of each other's journey and even once they've passed, their story lives on. Each one is spoken of and remembered, just as though they were family.

"At times you wonder whether you can do it and it does depend on what you're going through personally," Ms Tellus said.

"But you leave that at the door and you look after the person in front of you. They're probably in a worse position."

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