Palliative care is recognised by individualised, holistic models of care, delivered carefully, sensitively, ethically, and therapeutically by using skilled communication with attention to detail, meticulous assessment, and advancing knowledge. Wherever palliative care is used, its core ingredient is the quality of presence that the caregiver brings to the patient, a way of caring that enables discernment of the ongoing needs of the patient and family as they evolve and emphasises being alongside them. The focus is on all that is still possible in this time of multiple losses, the patient’s and family’s quest for meaning, and sustaining their experience of connectedness as they adapt to the challenges of the moment.