Excerpt from: New York Times (click for full article)
One begins to wonder: Has it become obligatory for people with terminal illnesses to work like dogs during their final months or years? Is this how we define a “good death” now? Is one a slacker to perform otherwise? Is this kind of determination healthy for sick people? Is it healthy for anyone?
Among the projects Ms. Ephron was working on at the time of her death was “Lucky Guy,” a play that’s now on Broadway in a production starring Tom Hanks. It’s about the life of the former Daily News columnist Mike McAlary, who won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the biggest story of his career — the 1997 Abner Louima police-brutality scandal — while sick with cancer. Ms. Ephron’s message: Go out doing what you love.
“It’s easy to be dismissive about this kind of Type A overdrive, but it’s a mistake, I think, to criticize it,” says Shelly Kagan, the author of “Death” and a professor of philosophy at Yale. “We should consider ourselves fortunate if we find our work so satisfying and meaningful, and if we can make a contribution until the end.”
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