The Measure of My Days

Description

The Measure of My Days

Is there such a thing as a good death — a death that is life’s last great act, the summation of its meaning and its final word to those it leaves behind?

The Measure of My Days is a collection of stories about death: about good deaths, and how they are achieved in the face of, and through, suffering and loss.

The stories are written by people who have cared for a family member during a final illness. They are moving testimonies to the pain and difficulty of the experience, but also to its value, and to the meaning of the life that has been completed.

The stories are framed by a meditation on the stations of the cross and by a series of poignant letters to Jesus from a woman struggling with her loss of independence after entering a nursing home.

Reflections on the temptations of euthanasia and abortion by French philosopher Therese Nadeau-Lacour provide a point of reference.