The Quality of Life: Living Well, Dying Well

by Janet Lembke

An eye-opening study of the world of caregiving to the dying examines diverse ways in which people approach death and how to care for loved ones in their final years, discussing such topics as death by choice, advanced medical directives, the bioethics of life support withdrawal, dementia, hospice, the quality of care, and more.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Janet Lembke (2 March 1933 - 3 September 2013), née Janet Nutt, was an American author, essayist, naturalist, translator and scholar. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio during the Great Depression, graduated in 1953 from Middlebury College, Vermont, with a degree in Classics, and her knowledge of the classical Greek and Latin worldview, from Homer to Virgil, informed her life and work. A Certified Virginia Master Gardener, she lived in Virginia and North Carolina, drawing inspiration from both locales. She was recognized for her creative view of natural cycles, agriculture and of animals, both domestic and wild, with whom we share the natural environment. Referred to as an "acclaimed Southern naturalist," she was equally (as The Chicago Tribune described her) a "classicist, a noted Oxford University Press translator of the works of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus". She received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to translate Virgil's Georgics, having already translated Euripides’ Electra and Hecuba, and Aeschylus’s Persians and Suppliants.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Johanna Jaworski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit of memoir and a bit of advice and a bit of investigation that all center on the end of life - especially when that end is painful. The parts that worked best and were the most interesting to me was Lembke's story of her post-stroke mother who needed infant-level care for five years before her death. Assisted suicide, a grim option, is grimly discussed. In-home care, assisted living and nursing home care are discussed. Most felt out of date in that they seemed easier to access than what we have to deal with today. Consequently, any advice or general information that was useful to Lembke felt useless. What remains is the story of caring for a body for years that can give nothing back. What remains is just love that is hard.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended