I experienced a number of losses the year Marianne died — three friends and a brother. I felt her death more keenly because she was among my closest friends and because I accompanied her through the final months of her dying. Our friendship became more intimate at the very time I had to letting go […]
Death has a bad public image. In hospitals, it’s the enemy to be fought and resisted. On TV, death is either quick and quickly forgotten in cop shows; scary, ooookeee spooky in horror shows; or tragic and depressing in dramas. Death needs a new PR campaign! We need new stories about death if we are […]
I made a lot of mistakes when my parents were dying. Obvious signs of their aging were overlooked, communication broke down, I often failed to show up and when I did, I quickly ran away. I felt confused, indecisive and overwhelmed and when they were gone, full of remorse and regret. The experience was intense […]
When my friend, Marianne, had a recurrence of a particularly nasty cancer, she fought it for all she was worth. She was only 53 and not ready to die. Her oncologist told her it was time to sign up with hospice. Instead she plopped down $4,000, crossed the Mexican boarder and returned with a bag […]
Over the last few decades, advances in medical technology have dramatically changed the way we die. In the good ole days (not always so good), families waited patiently at the bedside of dying loved ones while nature took its course. With the wide array of medical drugs, procedures and devices that are now available, it […]
As the saying goes: Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. Taxes, however, come due at predictable times, which forces us to prepare, even if we hate doing it. Death, on the other had, is completely unpredictable and so much easier to put it out of our minds until it is too late. […]
My sister Kip and her husband Richard had two adorable brown sable Burmese kitties — Mina and Clovis. They were litter mates, housemate, and playmates. Last November, during that terrible Sandy storm that left parts of Lower Manhattan without power, Mina stopped eating. At first they assumed it was the stress of the storm. But […]
Last night I dreamed: I am in a large cineplex theater. I am searching for a movie that has already started and only has fifteen minutes left. I search and search but I am never able to find the right theater. Dreams fascinate me. They are so helpful to my life journey. Most frequently they […]
Tighe Foley, one of the four people appearing in my documentary film Facing Death . . . with open eyes, spoke about a pivotal moment when he switched from struggling to live with HIV to anticipating his death. “I was crossing the Bay Bridge,” he recalled. “It was just a beautiful day . . . […]
After my dear friend Marianne died, my husband George and I spent a couple of months clearing out her apartment and storage lockers. It’s an interesting process sorting through the accumulation of a lifetime, a little like an archeological excavation. Marianne had been a private person and we discovered details of her life we had […]
