Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, written by Atul Gawande
Gawande is a surgeon exploring the way our culture treats aging and death. Using his own experience as a doctor and family member of the dying, as well as drawing on what others have experienced, he offers constructive criticism of the way medical professionals and nursing homes treat patients. It's certainly an insightful book for anyone who deals with aging or dying people professionally. However, it's also a good book for everyone to read, as none of us will escape our own death or that of those we love and are in a position to make decisions with or for.
p. 77, This is the consequence of a society that faces the final phase of the human life cycle by trying not to think about it. We end up with institutions that address any number of societal goals - from freeing up hospital beds to taking burdens off families' hands to copying with poverty among the elderly - but never the goal that matters to the people who reside in them: how to make life worth living when we're weak and frail and can't fend for ourselves anymore.
p. 128, Medical professionals concentrate on repair of health, not sustenance of the soul. Yet - and this is the painful paradox - we have decided that they should be the ones who largely define how we live in our waning days.
p. 140, All we ask is to be allowed to remain the writers of our own story. That story is ever changing. Over the course of our lives, we may encounter unimaginable difficulties. Our concerns and desires may shift. But whatever happens, we want to retain the freedom to shape our lives in ways consistent with our character and loyalties.
p. 232, One has to decide whether one's fears or one's hopes are what should matter most.
*****
Lady Cop Makes Trouble (A Kopp Sisters Novel, book 2), written by Amy Stewart
Constance Kopp is working for the sheriff's department now, but most people aren't thrilled to have a female in the mix. After making a huge mistake on the job that will prove costly to others, she sets off on her own to hunt down a fugitive, while continuing to work with the jail's female inmates. Like the other books in this series, the Kopp sisters were real people and many of the story's details come from actual headlines, but the story itself is a work of fiction.
*****
This Side of Home, written by Renee Watson
Life can be unfair. It can change your neighborhood into something unfamiliar, make children suffer for their parents' choices, put unnecessary strain on relationships of all kinds, and cause tension in a community. Life can also be beautiful. It can provide new experiences, give people a chance to serve others, create opportunities for meaningful relationships, and foster unity. It does all those things in this story of a young woman wrestling between hope and disappointment, personal values and cultural expectations, taking a stand and going with the flow.
*****
Wishing on Willows, written by Katie Ganshert
A widowed mother with a deep dedication to her community and a focused businessman with his own baggage have their worlds collide in this story of grief, determination, and learning to look past one's own perspective.
p. 48, ... and like a deep massage against all-too-tender muscles, the lyrics dug into his knotted up soul, reminding him of a truth that had become entirely too slippery. God's grace was big enough. For him.
*****
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