Kirsten Hotchkiss 
My dad never talked to his parents about their final instructions. He says that even though his mother sent her sons to church school every Sunday, when she reached her seventies, she confessed that she did not believe in death or resurrection or “all that stuff.” On her death bed, at the age of …
When I think of songs to celebrate the end of one’s life, there are several that come to mind, depending upon the kind of life you lived and the music you loved. Everyone, of course, knows Amazing Grace. It’s such a beautiful song and appropriate for many occasions. It’s been recorded by many solo artists …
It’s a little unsettling to receive a note in Linked In or a Friend request on Facebook from someone whom I know passed away several months or even years ago. Although a warm memory might come to mind, there’s nothing else I can do but wonder how many other graves there are in the digital …
Besides the fact that this is our wedding song (it wasn’t until many years after that we learned it was a spiritual song), and a really lovely tune, its message is powerful: the importance of telling people how much you love them cannot be overstated. Read the lyrics here. In an interview on 60 Minutes …
Unfortunately, the only rites of passage that we elders know much more about are funerals. We attend them too frequently. If humor’s a part of these essays, what’s so funny about death? Of course, we are depressed, unless we are just attending to be seen. Or because we have to, not wish to. Many of …
Sunday mornings are my trip through the New York Times. Our local paper actually prints the pages, and I go to the national news section to read the obits. To be sure I am not inadvertently there. The paid ones are on the right-hand side. I look at the photos and invariably there will be …