Happiness in this World » Life and Death

The Exact Date Of Your Demise

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 23:00:31 +0000

Photo: beatplusmelody

Human beings are the only living creatures endowed with a full awareness of their mortality, a wound so painful that they’re driven to pull every cognitive trick in the book to deny it. As with any skill, some of us are far better at this than others, yielding a wide range [...]

The Right To Die

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 22:00:58 +0000

Photo: rjhuttondfw

The notion that dying is a right seems nonsensical to argue: death is given to all of us equally without the need of anyone’s sanction. The right to die well, on the other hand—well, that’s another matter entirely. A good death is, in many cases, something our fellow human beings have [...]

End-Of-Life Discussions

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:00:29 +0000

Photo: 28misguidedsouls

When I was a resident working in the intensive care unit (the ICU) at the University of Iowa, one of my responsibilities was to communicate with the family members of my patients. However, an intensive care unit, as its name suggests, is an intensely busy place, and I often observed among [...]

The Double-Edged Sword Of Hope

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 22:00:14 +0000

Photo: Albion Europe ApS

I’ve taken care of many patients with cancer throughout my career, but one in particular stands out in my mind, a forty-year-old journalist who came to me with a diagnosis of a grade IV glioblastoma—a malignant brain tumor with an almost uniformly fatal prognosis. The reason I remember him [...]

Funerals

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 22:00:01 +0000

Photo: The U.S. Army

A relative of mine recently died, so my parents, my brothers, and I went to his funeral. The rabbi was appropriately somber and talked about him fondly, as if she’d known him (though she hadn’t). His sister and brother stood up and told us all how much they loved [...]