With the End in Mind

We don’t deal well with death these days. There is little talk within our social circles or in the media about how people die and how to make deaths “good.” There are actual stories behind the sterile death statistics and announcements we occasionally see in the media. We all die. Most people will experience a slow (not sudden or unexpected), relatively peaceful death from old age or disease. That is, a death that can be normalized and predicted. Kathryn Mannix is a palliative care doctor and CBT therapist in the UK. She has been doing this work for a couple decades. In this book, Mannix, tells a wide variety of patient stories centering on the way that people cope with their impending death and the actual event. One of the recurring themes is how peaceful most deaths can be. The author takes us with her to visit patients and as she coaches families through the death process right up to the moment their loved one stops breathing. The stories focus on both normalizing talk of death as a life process like any other, and educating families on that process. Every story also shows the way that Mannix and her fellow healthcare workers help their patients to have “good” deaths. The stories are varied and all are deeply touching. The author brings humanity to a topic that has been a part of cultural denial for way to long. I like how approachable she makes the topics of death and terminal disease. She also includes fascinating medical details on how she and her team solve patient problems to keep them comfortable during their final days. This a book for anyone who wants to understand how we die and how palliative care professionals help patients who are dying to be as comfortable as possible. It provides good advice and examples for people with loved ones who are seriously ill and dying. There is nothing sad or depressing about this book. Though the stories are touching, they are not maudlin.