Dear Maggie,

My seventy-four-year-old mom is dying of ovarian cancer that has spread to other organs. The doctors have given her three or four months to live. She doesn’t seem to be in unbearable pain yet, but she’s lost her appetite and refuses to eat. Now her doctor wants to do a surgery to remove several feet of her intestine, where the cancer has spread. She’ll need to wear a colostomy bag. The surgery will give her a bit more time, maybe a few more months. She is looking to me to make this decision for her, and I don’t know what to do. Please give me your thoughts.

Signed,

Desperate Daughter

Dear DD,

I’m so sorry for what you and your family are going through. I’ve been through it too, so I know how hard it is.

It always stuns me how hard doctors fight against death. I guess it’s what they’re trained to do, but it seems to me that training needs a little tweak here and there. Imagine going through life battling against something so inevitable. Every one of us is going to leave this physical form. It’s the only possible ending for every single one of us. And yet when it approaches, we pull out every weapon available to stave it off. And in the end, it comes all the same. It can’t be otherwise.