Are you aware of the California man, Chris Salvatore, an actor and singer, who cared for his elderly neighbor, Norma Cook. He announced today that she died. It is such a heartwarming story, I had to write about it. They were inseparable for the last four years and in Cook’s final days. When doctors told […]

88.3 percent of doctors would forgo resuscitation and aggressive treatment if facing a terminal illness or end of life, according to a recent study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. Even with the Self-Determination Act in 1990, a law designed to give patients more control over determining end-of-life-care decisions, physicians attitudes didn’t change…the majority […]

RIP Brittany Maynard. Melanie Hack Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend Read an excerpt now TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James

Ed Sheeran, the red-headed twenty-three-year old English singer-songwriter, reportedly helped make a dying girl’s dream come true, just moments before she passed away on Tuesday…only three days ago. Spurred by a Twitter campaign called #SongForTri, the musician called Triona Priestley, a 15-year-old teen in Dublin, Ireland who suffered from cystic fibrosis, and sang “Little Bird” […]

Having experienced the recent two-year anniversary of my mother’s death (on January 13th), I’ve realized how grateful I am for having been able to be with her as she passed from this life to the next. Reflecting on those final days and hours with her, I feel honored to be blessed with a deep inner […]

LET me do my work each day; and if the darkened hours of despair overcome me, may I not forget the strength that comforted me in the desolation of other times. May I still remember the bright hours that found me walking over the silent hills of my childhood, or dreaming on the margin of […]

Palliative care is a valuable role, making death easier to face…but for some it isn’t enough. “What I’m worried about is how I’m going to die,” said Dr. Donald Low, infectious disease specialist (the 2003 SARS expert) who advocated for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide in the days before his death last week (on September […]

Killing oneself is not illegal in Canada, but helping someone to commit suicide is against the law. So Susan Griffiths, a seventy-two-year-old Canadian, went to a clinic in Zurich, Switzerland for the right to die on her own terms, with the help of a doctor, before her body could be completely taken over by multiple […]

How did you do it?” Carol asked me, knowing she was facing an overwhelming situation. She wanted to ‘be with’ her mother who was dying with Alzheimer’s, just as my Mom had. Carol was unable to carry on a conversation with her mother about what her mother was feeling and thinking as her body and […]

When your loved one deteriorates and dies and you are exhausted from the care-taking, you must forgive yourself for your imperfect efforts to be totally responsive as your beloved aged, became more dependent, and placed greater expectations upon you—confident that your deceased beloved understands and forgives you. It’s natural to want to tell yourself: “I […]