Larry Patten
Larry Patten is a retired United Methodist pastor. He has served rural and suburban churches, been a campus minister and hospice chaplain, and currently works in grief support for a Fresno, California hospice. Patten maintains the websites larrypatten.com and hospice-matters.com. His writing has appeared in The Christian Century and Spirituality and Health, among other publications. His book, A COMPANION FOR THE HOSPICE JOURNEY: Thoughts on Life’s Tough Decisions, was released in April 2019. As a pastor, chaplain, and now involved with grief support, he understands the ignorance about, and often fear of, hospice care. Through his writing, Larry hopes to provide information to help people understand their choices when facing the end of life. At a personal level, Larry’s father had dementia for years, dying a slow, difficult death. A little over a year later, his mother’s death came in a handful of weeks after an unexpected cancer diagnosis. Dying, death, and grieving impact everyone.
