Experts in end-of-life care tell us that we should talk about death and dying with relatives and friends, but how do we get such conversations off the ground in a society that historically has avoided the topic?
In Let's Talk About Death: Asking the Questions that Profoundly Change the Way We Live and Die, Steve Gordon and Irene Kacandes share the results of a no-holds-barred discussion they conducted for several years over email.
Steve Gordon is a massage therapist and the founder, executive director, and primary massage therapist for a nonprofit program called The Hand to Heart Project (launched in 2007), which provides free in-home massage and compassionate touch to people with advanced cancer, including people in treatment as well as people nearing the end of life. Previous to becoming a massage therapist, he was a newspaper writer and editor, working for the Keene Sentinel (Keene, NH) and the Valley News (Lebanon, NH). Irene Kacandes is the Dartmouth Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College, where she is also involved in the Medical Humanities Initiative. President of the German Studies Association, Kacandes also chairs the Division of Autobiography, Biography, and Life Writing of the Modern Language Association.
