These words should convince the reader that this demanding task is not as impossible as it seems, and that it offers priceless rewards for all parties involved. Your parents' final struggles are too profound and too meaningful to consign to nameless professionals, if this can be avoided. I ask them to recall the first time they considered changing diapers on an infant. But when it's your own child, somehow you lose that squeamishness and do what is necessary. I always try to prepare for a potentially unusual or challenging experience by reading.
Ignorance merely invents dangers that are imagined and accentuates dangers that are real.
Finding myself in unknown territory, I scrambled to find any important ideas written about the topics of death and dying. I found, scattered across my library shelves, a huge amount of reflection on these subjects. Particularly useful to me were the words of poets unafraid to probe the complex emotions of love and grief. I have heard a thousand times, but only now appreciate for their eloquence and sincerity. Novelists and playwrights, too, have poked through these waters many times, and most of them achieve a level of expression far beyond my capability.