dav_soc

“I’d like to tell you how such conversations have allowed me to survive, and live well.”

I love life, which is why I think we should talk about death, or at least feel that we can. Our mortality can be terrifying. To bring our attention to its inevitability can be debilitating if we perpetually cower in its shadow. As I observed in this post encouraging us to discuss death, facing our end is empowering, relieving and fulfilling. This is vibrantly illustrated in this uplifting letter penned by Amy Berman in the Washington Post. Berman has terminal cancer and since 2013 has written about the end of life health care choices she has talked about with her healthcare providers. Berman refers to these as lifesaving conversations and, in the context of her condition and her choices about life, it is no oxymoron.