Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics

by Eleanor Clift

What has become known as the Schiavo affair-the death of a brain-damaged woman in Florida in 2005, and the controversy that surrounded it-was a revelatory moment in American society. For the first time, the nation got a clear view of both the fanaticism gripping the religious right and the political power it could bring to bear even when the vast majority of the country disagreed with it. But it was also a turning a moment when America seemed to glimpse a dangerous radicalism, and began to pull back. Eleanor Clift witnessed this event from a unique vantage point. At the same time that Schiavo was dying in her Florida hospice, Clift's husband, Tom Brazaitis, was dying of cancer at home; the two passed away within a day of each other. Two Weeks of Life alternates between these two stories to provide a moving commentary on how we deal, or fail to deal, with dying in modern America.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

352 pages, Paperback

First published March 10, 2008

About the author

Eleanor Roeloffs Clift is an American news editor, columnist, political commentator, pundit, reporter and author. She is currently a contributing editor for Newsweek magazine. Her column, "Capitol Letter" is posted each week on Newsweek.com and MSNBC. She is a regular political panelist on the nationally syndicated show The McLaughlin Group, which she has compared to "a televised food fight". She is also a political contributor for the Fox News Channel.

Reviews

[Lindsey Ripple · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great combination of biography and real-life legal drama. Really made me think about how to balance my pro-life values with the issues of end-of-life rights combined with a romance of a dying husband and his realistic wife. Great from start to finish - surprisingly wasn’t off-put but the author and husband’s liberal leanings, which was a plus.

[Joanne Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clift does a good job in this book of combining the personal (the story of her husband Tom's death from cancer) and the political (the story of the controversy surrounding removing Terri Shiavo's feeding tube), which happened at the same time in 2005. What I found even more interesting, reading this book for the first time in 2021, is how much our society's view of hospice has evolved over the past 16 years.

[Madison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Working in hospice this book was such a great window into the mind and soul of a family going though losing a loved on and how they don’t love in a bubble removed from mainstream news. i also learned so much about the Schiavo story, hospice and quality EOL care is vital to healthcare.

*writing one year after reading after discovering goodreads

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. The writing was decent, though the mix is a little odd (the author addresses the odd topics mix). Clift combines the Terri Schiavo debate (remove her feeding tube or not) with Clift's husband's terminal cancer. At the end, there is an epilogue full of Clift's husband's excerpts (he was a writer, and the epilogue includes several of his columns) which were interesting but repeated a lot of what was already covered. I didn't agree with much of Clift's opinions, but I think she tried really hard to give both sides an equal argument. Ethics in this sense can become really complicated, and I think the question here is a fascinating one. I do agree with Clift that the government should stay clean out of quandaries like the Schiavo one. The most interesting part of the memoir to me was Clift's small excerpt that covered her lunch date with Sandra Day O'Connor. What Clift does best here is expose the media for its one-sided slant on things like this, blowing sensationalism out of proportion to sell their words. It was worth a read, but I didn't think there was anything particularly earth-shattering. It was a nice reminder to be positive.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another book along the lines of Year of Magical Thinking and Swimming in a Sea of Death where a surviving spouse or child writes of the death of their husband/parent.
In this one, Newsweek columnist and TV panelist Eleanor Clift alternates between the end of her husband's life (also a journalist)and the struggle around Terri Schiavo's end of life. Clift writes clearly and sympathetically about both. All the issues of end of life, what is a good death, what the surviving family experiences during these times is handled well in Clift's personal and reportorial book. She juxtaposes the struggles over Terri Schiavo's drama with her husband's and her own. Both of her 'stories' are not only well told, but they also give us a glance at how one person, her husband, handled his own end of life with dignity and how she struggled with his dying.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book really made me think. And I love books that do that. While I enjoy reading fiction most of the time is was nice to read a real life story full of observation, the author almost tells the story of her husband's death as a passive observer and in this context it works. This shows her skill. Many other authors writing a book with this subject matter would have seemed distant and perhaps uncaring. Not Eleanor. She is a talented journalist and parallelling her experience of cancer taking her husband with the decision to remove a feeding tube from a severely disabled girl really served both stories. At first I found myself wanting her to tell me more about her husband's story. I was a bit impatient, but she got there. This book makes you think about your life and your death, what you want them both to look like. There were some hard choices made and fought for. would you want to be kept alive if you turned out like Terri?

[Sevenponds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eleanor Clift’s husband, Tom Brazaitis, died in 2005. For years, the Newsweek journalist cared for Tom, who had been diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1999, and towards the end she took him home to spend his final days in his own bed, situated in the living room (Tom was too weak to go up the stairs).

Two Weeks of Life, part memoir, part journalistic piece, was undertaken shortly after Tom’s death. Even as she cared for her husband, Clift continued to work as a reporter and columnist—work helped as a distraction from the grief in her personal life. So when, also in 2005, the Terri Schiavo case blew up in Florida, Clift was ready to write about it. As she says, this book “emerged out of these parallel experiences” of losing her husband to cancer and watching the nation riveted by the right-to-die debate.

[Continued]


Full SevenPonds review:
http://blog.sevenponds.com/lending-in...

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deeply personal, thoughtful book by journalist/political commentator Eleanor Clift concerning the last two weeks of her husband's life. His treatment options over, Tom was dying of cancer, lovingly aided by his family and hospice caregivers in his own living room. Meanwhile, a political battle raged over Terri Schiavo's right to die, which Ms. Clift confronted daily in her professional life, being asked to write and speak about it. Tom and Terri would die just one day apart, leaving Ms. Clift overwhelmed with the idea that such a personal decision could become such a national circus and disgrace.

This book is beautifully written, with biographical details about both Tom and Terri interspersed with the current events of those two weeks in 2005. Surely, any reader will long be musing its import - how do we cope with death? - well after the book is finished.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eleanor Clift's husband died from the effects of various cancers which spread from her husband's kidney cancer. Tom laid dying under hospice care at home during the same last two weeks of Terry Schiavo's life. Clift, a journalist along with her husband, has a way of bringing together her family's experiences with dealing with sure, impending death with the struggle culturally and politically to define Schiavo's life and death. Informative politically and emotionally attentive. A reader can gleam some interesting tidbits on what to write into a living will about a host of conditions commonly lumped inappropriately together under the misnomer "vegetative state." The best advice she got from caring friends and knowledgeable experts about learning how to deal with end of life decisions? Surrender. And pay attention.

[Marcelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eleanor's (Newsweek columnist) husband has liver cancer. In his last two weeks of life the Terri Schiavo case of a young girl supposedly in a vegetable state is in the middle of a battle between her husband and her family - should her feeding tube be removed or not. Eleanor goes back and forth between the two - watching her husband die and watching/commenting on the fight over Terri. Interesting to me; also because I remember the Terri battle.

[Mary Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a really moving and interesting book. Clift combines a reporter's tale about the Terri Schiavo hysteria with the story of her husband's last two weeks. By coincidence, she watched her husband's last weeks in hospice unfold while the Schiavo case came to its conclusion. While Clift is not sentimental and emotional about her husband's death, her depth of feeling is clear, and the book really does make on think about end of life issues.

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read book. Having a father and a sister who benefited from Hospice care it was sometimes tough to read. However it explores dying in an american culture in a unique way contrasting the controversy over Teri Schiavo and the author's husband who is dying of liver cancer in the exact same weeks of 2005. Lookng at cutlure, science and religion- with some humor thrown in- no matter what side you sit on this is a great book to get you thinking. Please read- it's a must.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even though Eleanor tried to be fair when relating the story of Terri Schiavo, her liberal leanings were very clear. She jumped around too much with information that was either irrelavant or not explained well. Either way, it wasn't an engaging book. With respect to her husband Tom's death, in Ms. Clift attempt to protect Tom's privacy, she did not reveal enough to engage me in his struggle.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eleanor writes about her husband journalist Tom Braizatis as he passed away from renal cancer at the same time the national debate raged over Terri Shiavo’s fate. Well done—a really rewarding discussion about death, grace, responsibility and ethics. Home hospice care gets high marks. Some great quotes from Art Buchwald- including “Death is easy—parking is hard.”

[Kit]

I started this, and it's good, but the library wanted it back and I guess I have some ambivalence about reading it.... The book moves back and forth between Clift's personal situation (her husband dying) and the political machinery around death. Will keep it on the to-read list but wait to read it.

[Ellie Revert · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have watched Eleanor Clift for years, and had not known about her private life. This is an excellent book for anyone who is undergoing major cancer treatment, and even more so, for their spouses. I learned a great deal.

[Mazola1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Eleanor Clift's moving account of the last weeks of her husband's life intertwined with her thoughts and observations on the Terri Schiavo case, which was unfolding at the same time. Difficult subject matter. Good book.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. A must read, especially for any lawyer. My mom, the writer, browsed through it and found the "Terry" parts boring and a little above her head, but completely related to and appreciated the "Tom" parts. I enjoyed all of it and am proud to say I weeped openly on a place in certain places.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two lives coming to an end, Terri Schiavo and Ms. Clift's husband Tom Brazaitis. The book follows the media frenzy around Schiavo, the care of a dying loved one, hospice, friendship, and more. A good read, sometimes sad.

[Desi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting story of Clift's husband's death from kidney cancer at the same time as the Terri Shiavo issue came to a head.

[Coly Bryant]

This book is kind of hitting home. I'll write more later

[Luann Habecker]

sad to see how people attempt to cope and approach death and dying apart from Christ..

[Paul Wilner · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://obit-mag.com/index.php?query=P...

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Insightful!!