“Closure doesn’t even exist. It’s a made-up concept that we use to talk about loss and grief, but seeking it can do more harm than good.”
preparing for death
Why Everyone Needs an Advanced Directive (And Where to Get Yours)
Advance Directives save families a lot of strife when planning end-of-life care — here’s your guide to choosing the right one.
End Well Symposium 2018: Here’s What You Missed
From doctors to actors to AI and VR researchers, the End Well Symposium brings together an eclectic group with one concern: doing death right.
What Happens When You Die in Winter: Icy Green Burial
Green burial is affordable and eco-friendly—but what happens when you die in winter? Here are 5 ways to conduct a green burial in the cold.
Love with the End in Sight
There’s nothing comfortable about considering that the people we love most in the world are eventually going to die. The alternative, though—ignoring that it will, indeed, happen one day—can leave us in a much less workable spot.
Examining Life, Looking Straight at Death
WNYC Radio’s program Radiolab recently presented an episode all about mortality—it’s thought-provoking and embedded with fascinating questions, starting with “Do we have to die?” and ending with “How do we deal with dying?”
Lessons from Hospice
What Comes Next and How to Like It is a memoir by Abigail Thomas that’s not particularly about death or dying. But it is, without a doubt, about the inscrutable and unpredictable things that life delivers up to us, including plenty of change and not an insignificant amount of loss—something Thomas knows a thing or two about.
How Learning About Death Changed My Life
Tracy Picha, When You Die’s associate producer in 2015 and ’16, has had a few changes in her life since learning, considering, wondering about mortality. Far from a macabre pursuit, it’s rekindled friendships and fine-tuned notions of what a good life means.
A Record in Photographs
“We are scared of death and I think that is in large part because we hide it away, out of sight and avoid it until we have to,” says Nancy Borowick of her photo essays for The New York Times that document both her father’s and her mother’s journeys through cancer treatment and ultimately their … Read more
Do We Need “Closure”?
