Giving in Memoriam

Prayers of Tara Home volunteers continue

Please share requests for special prayers.
Honor a friend or a loved-one’s memory with a gift in their name.
Anonymously fund guests who need financial assistance through Tara Home's Compassion Fund.

These are their stories...

A letter from a grandson

"I'd like to express my heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you for the love and kindness with whic you treated my grandma and my family. It was sweet serendipity for her to end up in such an amazing place as Tara Home. I wouldn't have imagined it in my wildest dreams — yet luckily for her, and my family, it was fantastically real — and provided her the opportunity to die with strength and dignity. The difference you made at the end of her life was incredible. Every time I visited her, she said that she was surrounded by the kindest people she every met ... I feel fully at peace, as does the rest of the family, knowing that she was held with such tenderness, even at the very end, and in her journey beyond it. It's a credit to all who participate and the open-heartedness you embody. I hope to be as lucky to find such a place and be treated as well when my time comes. May you all be so blessed as well. Thank you so much for everything."

Max Montgomery

Allen Schlumbrecht's mother found a way for her son's last wish to come true: to die outdoors.

Allen's love for the outdoors

"His mornings are filled with redwoods and wind chimes while his evenings are spent playing cooking channel videos as we help him whip up his favorite recipes in the kitchen. Alicia Kennedy, Tara Home director, hand-in-hand with hospice, scale Allen’s treatment plan to his ever changing symptoms, making our volunteer experience as medically precise and physically pleasant as possible. The gratitude I feel for their attention and affection is simply ineffable. Tara Home [is] a completely volunteer-run mountain cabin in the Land of Medicine Buddha. This is a gift I have worked hard to give my son and I couldn’t do it without you and this beautiful community."

Cathy Brown Bañuelos

A letter from JR Haggarty

Tara home is more like family than staff. The gratitude I feel wouldn’t fit in a book. How do I put into words feelings that I didn’t know were possible. Or experiences I never know I could have?

Imagine if you will the safe place we return to when meditating. Picture a small cabin nestled in a clearning on the side of a mountain guarded within the redwoods and know you are home. It is its own world surrounded and protected by the trees and mountains displaying nature’s strength. The support of the many that pour their hears into loving and care for the people we love at a time when we need it so much.

THIS IS TARA HOME!

It is a place to rest, ponder, reflect and face the choices we have made and come to some level of comfort for what we are experiencing as we enter into yet another chapter of life and death as we know it.

Many times Bonnie expressed unending gratitude for Tara Home and its family. She spent hours on the deck overlooking the prayer wheel, looking forward to the bells as people prayed and coming to terms with so many things; her time spent here, many relationships within life as well as preparations for her passing. She ultimately chose LMB as the keeper of her ashes as she moved on.

We were all not only allowed but encouraged to spend time with a loved one in this magnificent time of life, death, transition. Family who came from distant parts of the country as well as family understanding, love, care and concern.

I have come to the realization that there is no easy way to confront mortality. There is, however, the ability to come to terms with life and death and, in rare instances, the opportunity to look forward to passing with grace, disnity and respect, all of which were embraced by Tara Home.

Tara Home’s close personal relationship with Hospice of Santa Cruz and their ability to integrate their help and care within the comfort of a home setting is amazing. To be so openly accepted within the community of Tara Home and LMB is truly a life-changing experience.

In closing, Tara Home was and always will be the perfect addition to one of the important times in life.

With all my love, support, and gratitude, JR Haggarty

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