I enjoy looking into and writing about what it means to live well. But a particular conversation over dinner with a former coworker turned friend reminded me that living well doesn’t stop at the edges of life. How we face death, our own and the deaths of the people we love, is part of it too. Dignity, presence, and care matter just as much in our final moments as in any other.
We were having dinner at one of my favorite Mediterranean spots in Schenectady. Over the years, she had taken on so many different kinds of nursing that I had to ask: what was she most drawn to after her experiences so far?
She said she was drawn to wherever there was the most need. And the work that stayed with her most was her time as an end-of-life care nurse.
Then she said something I wasn’t expecting: that she finds death beautiful.
I was so surprised to hear this. To me, death was a sad subject. And the woman sitting across from me was one of the most positive people I know, quick to laugh even through the roughest days at work.
She explained that most people don’t know how to cope with death. Not the person dying, and often not the people around them either. It’s something we will all face, and yet so few of us are taught how.
She recounted one patient in particular who stayed with her. He was dying, and his room was full of family, but their attention wasn’t on him. They were caught up in themselves, in their conflicts and the stress of the moment, arguing with one another. And in the middle of it all, he lay there uncleaned and uncared for, looking unsettled and lost.
So she did what she could. She cleaned him up. She made him comfortable. She gave him some dignity.
And only then, she said, did the family seem to really see him. As if caring for his body had reminded everyone in the room that he was still a person, still there, still worth turning toward.
To her, that was the work: helping someone pass into whatever comes next with dignity, and helping the people who love them be present for it. It’s something we rarely examine, she said, because we don’t know how to go through it.
Listening to her, I felt something shift. Her story opened my eyes to death and dying in a way I hadn’t seen before.
Her story reminded me of a moment I carried with me from residency. I watched a man’s heartbeat fade on a monitor, the line slowing until it stopped. I didn’t know his name or his story. And yet the sadness that rose in me was overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do with it, and I was confused by it. Why was I crying for a complete stranger?
Talking with her, I started to see it differently. Maybe those tears weren’t only grief. Maybe they were a kind of witness. Someone noticing that a life was ending, and that it mattered.
It made me look at my own work, too. Much of what I decided to explore through Haesol is longevity: how to age well, how to live longer and better. Optimizing what we can is worth doing. Accepting what we can’t is part of living well, too. I left dinner thinking about death less as something to fear and more as something to tend to, with care, attention, and gentleness, the way we would tend to any important passage in life.
Living well matters. So does leaving well, and helping others do the same. I’m grateful to the people like her who choose to stand where the need is greatest, and grateful she let me see it through her eyes, even for one evening.
Some of the most important conversations happen over a meal.
That’s why the next chapter of Across the Table is moving into the kitchen. I’ll be cooking at home and alongside people, from the grocery store to the table, as they share their process, go-to recipes, and the stories behind them.
Is there a recipe that feels like home to you? I’d love to hear about it. Share it in the comments, or send me a message on Instagram at @haesol.life. Yours might end up at the table.