Three books about death and dying

You might say I've been on a binge lately. In the past few months, I've read three books about death and dying. Twenty years ago, I might have thought of this as a premonition, but I no longer trust in premonitions, and I feel fine, really, for someone my age.

The death and dying books were not part of a plan; they simply came my way in nearly sequential time. Most recently, I read "The End of Your Life Book Club" by Will Schwalbe. The book is not so much about books or book clubs as it is a memoir of the author's time spent with his terminally ill mother. They decided that reading books together and discussing them would be a great way to pass the time while she was undergoing chemo treatments for Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

The book discussions fade in comparison to the plans made and the things done as Mom dealt with the aggressive cancer and the extensive treatments to forestall its inevitable outcome. She traveled extensively to visit her children and grandchildren, to be with old friends from around the world and to strengthen relationships with friends and family. Fortunately, she was given time for all of that. Despite pancreatic cancer's three- to six-month average survival rates (my sister lived just 30 days after her diagnosis), Ms. Schwalbe survived more than a year with good "quality of life" for much of that time.

Previously, I had read Nina Riggs' "The Bright Hour," a book that is excruciatingly sad and at the same time positive and beautiful. Riggs, the mother of two small boys, was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 37. What should have been just a "one small spot" that could be easily removed and destroyed turned out to be highly aggressive and ultimately fatal. Riggs spent the last few months of her life writing this memoir filled with the insights and beauty of a poet. She finds humor in the midst of pain and despair. She celebrates every minute of time she has with her sons and her supportive and brave husband. "The Bright Hour" deserves all the accolades it has received, and I've recommended it to dozens of people. Riggs died only weeks before her book's release.

The first book in my trilogy of recently read death-and-dying books was Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal." Gawande, a medical doctor, examines the way we die in this "civilized" modern world, and he concludes that we are often doing it all wrong. Instead of fighting death, as if it were a foreign invader, he recommends seeing death as both inevitable and part of life. The extreme measures to keep a terminally ill patient alive often result in pain, discomfort and a terrible "quality of life" for the patient and for loved ones. Modern medicine can keep many patients alive but cannot make them well and cannot restore their enjoyment of life. Accepting the inevitability of death can be the first step toward a more humane, less painful and less costly manner of death.

Of these three books, I would recommend that "The Bright Hour" and "Being Mortal" are definitely worth a second reading.

I should probably be looking for some humorous books to relieve the sadness of the last three books. Instead, I'm rereading "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Ecco, which I read about 25 years ago. It's about a series of mysterious deaths in a 14th century abbey. The nice thing about a well-aged memory is that I remember almost nothing of the plot, only that I thought it was a great book when I first read "Name of the Rose." We'll see how a more mature reader likes it.