What Really Matters: 7 Lessons for the Living from Stories of the Dying” by Dr. Karen Wyatt.

This book shares many heartfelt stories from her dying patients and their family members. Inspired from these stories, Dr. Wyatt has structured the book as a life guidebook. The “lessons” she shares include: suffering, forgiveness, fear, love, and more. These provide us a foundation to reflect, revisit and possibly reframe how we choose to think about “What Really Matters” to each of us.

I love this book because she synthesizes so many of the gifts dying patients have also shared with me. Dying really can illuminate the quality of our lives, as this book beautifully shows. Check your local library or purchase as a print, audio or e-book; I think you too will love it.  You may also enjoy Dr. Karen Wyatts website, eoluniversity.com EOL stands for end of life. There you will also find a free “What Really Matters” workbook that can serve as a great companion to her book.

Until the book ends,

Esther Suarez

Hospice Services of Lake County Volunteer