Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and what Matters in the End

When Bella’s health complications become direr, she requires at-home nursing care. Yet the couple continues to live together and be each other’s constant companions until she collapses one day after lunch and dies in an ambulance shortly thereafter. Silverstone is glad for the time they had together at the end and feels that keeping her at home rather than on a nursing floor was the right decision. Though that option might’ve afforded her a little more time, it would’ve taken her away from her husband and all that was comforting and familiar.

This is what ultimately happens to Alice Hobson, who moves to a nursing home and swiftly becomes depressed. Nurses monitor her activities and diet, which is a relief to her family but an annoyance to Alice, who is used to her independence. Eventually when Alice begins to experience abdominal pain and begins to vomit blood, she tells no one. She does not press the call button or alert her roommate. Instead, she simply passes quietly.

The author describes the experiences of Lou Sanders, who, at eighty-eight years old, moves in with his daughter, Shelley, and her husband, Pete, and her teenaged sons. Lou enjoys the company of the family dog, Beijing, and befriends the young mailman, who starts coming by after his shift to play cards with Lou.