Karen Dempsey

you can do all that but you have to be calm and you have to be ready to go when it's time to go you have to be ready to just begin and to roll with what's happening and I mean I've had ceremonies where it's outdoor and I mean I remember one couple from Arizona the hotel and I all tried to tell them Irish weather is changeable they didn't get it we were standing outside a castle and there was a beautiful wide horizon and I could see the clouds coming literally and it's on my social media actually because the clouds came and there was an absolute downpour

And I just had to make a decision there and then.

I mean, the couple really wanted to go for it and they knew it might rain.

All I could do was really condense down my words because there's no point breaking the ceremony right in the middle.

So we got to the exchange of vows, joining of hands, exchange of vows and rings.

did the pronouncement ran inside and then did the pieces that we couldn't do you know the poems and readings and all that I just saved all of them did the core bit and then we ran in and it's beautiful it just it is what it is everybody got saturated what could you do

It is very intense because it is incredibly intense to know that time becomes suddenly so powerful and important.

And the ceremonies that happen at end of life, it's not always that the clock is ticking on you, but sometimes it really, really is.

And my background in hospice nursing actually really helps me with that because I know that even if people say, I think it's fine and I think they'll be grand or we're planning to do this tomorrow.

I will say, you need to be ready to do it with very short notice.

And I say to them as well, you just call me.

I will come day or night and I make space.

When I'm holding a space for a family like this, I make space.

I will come day or night.

There is no problem.

And I'm very familiar with hospitals and hospital wards and how it works.

So it's incredibly intense and it is incredibly humbling as well.

I think sometimes people think and you see it maybe on social media and on the television where there is a ceremony happening in a hospital and there's this big rush to get a dress and to get a bouquet and to get all of these things and amazing if we have the space for that but if we don't

actually it's so profound to have two people who when the clock is bearing down on you very often it's because of the legals so it's not that it's a symbolic ceremony in that case it's that we actually want to get the legal part complete and a part of that is the couple must commit to one another and exchange vows

And those vows are incredibly paired back and simple because usually a couple is talking about the rest of their life and all that's ahead of them.