When my cell phone rings early one sunny fall morning, I reach for it groggily, see that the call is from my mother and know that whatever she is about to say will be heartbreaking. I am still in bed in my pajamas, and my mom tells me that Marian Elizabeth has been born. Everything else my mother sa
Death and Dying
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Praying With Laurie: On grief, growth and letting go
After losing his daughter to cancer, Richard Wile embraces the kenosis, or self-emptying, of centering prayer.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
When Death Will Not Leave: A husband’s journey through grief
A husband’s journey through grief
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Deaths Door: Why must we turn our eyes from suffering?
Why must we turn our eyes from suffering? A reflection on my mother’s death.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
In Widow’s Weeds
Joan Didion has been writing books for more than 40 years. Her newest and most unforgettable book is “The Year of Magical Thinking.”
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
The Father of Mercies
My father performed the most powerful act of Christian charity I have ever personally witnessed: forgiving the young man who killed my brother.
Posted inFaith
On Dying Well
In the last few years, I have become increasingly involved with death. This involvement has come from three sources: my clinical practice as a physician specializing in geriatrics, my work as a Jesuit priest at an academic medical center and my own attempts as an educator to improve the care of the