Links to More Resources

Websites with practical resources

End of Life Collective—So many end-of-life care resources on this site. Courses, books, providers, etc.

Caringinfo: A program of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization

Five Wishes, National Info on Advance Care Planning

Death Cafe: Death Cafés are places people gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. I wrote about attending a death café in Boise in my second installment of Tending to Endings.

More Memoir

The Still Point of the Turning World, Emily Rapp Black. A friend who knew I was writing a memoir about my mother’s dying gave me this book, written by a mother who is told her first child has Tay-Sachs disease, a rare and always fatal degenerative disorder. It was an honor to read such an intimate perspective on loss by such a talented and honest writer.

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion. I remember hearing Didion give an interview on this book about the death of her husband, where she said (if I remember correctly) she was writing about grief as though it was a place and she was writing a travel story, observing everything, so that when you go there, you might have some landmarks. I read this classic before many of my own big losses and I’m thinking it’s probably time to read it again.

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi

Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon, English major, scientist, and husband who wrote a memoir about his own illness that was published after his death from metastatic lung cancer.

This TED talk given by the author’s wife reflects on the purpose of sharing that story. The book and the TED talk are incredibly insightful and moving.