When my grandfather died of heart failure on an operating table 1,500 miles away, my mother received the call in the middle of the night and was in a taxi to the airport by sunrise. My sister and I stayed home with my father while my mother flew alone to face the heartbreaking logistics. Her …
Funeral Pre-Planning: The Last Gift and Psychology of Grief Read More »
Who makes medical decisions if you’re incapacitated? It’s a question most people never consider—until it’s too late. In 1983, a 25-year-old woman named Nancy Cruzan crashed her car on a deserted Missouri road. The accident left her in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state: alive, but unaware. For seven years, her parents fought a …
In 1990, a 26-year-old woman named Terri Schiavo collapsed in her Florida home. The coma that followed led to a seven-year legal battle between her husband and parents over her medical care. At the heart of it? The absence of a living will or advance directive—documents that could have made her wishes clear from the …
7 Reasons You Need a Living Will or Advance Directive (And What Makes Them Different) Read More »
