The End of Your Life Book Club

by Will Schwalbe

Mom had always taught all of us to examine decisions by reversibility—that is, to hedge our bets. When you couldn’t decide between two things, she suggested you choose the one that allowed you to change course if necessary. Not the road less traveled but the road with the exit ramp.

1. Ask: “Do you want to talk about how you’re feeling?” 2. Don’t ask if there’s anything you can do. Suggest things, or if it’s not intrusive, just do them. 3. You don’t have to talk all the time. Sometimes just being there is enough.

There was one sure way to avoid being assigned an impromptu chore in our house—be it taking out the trash or cleaning your room—and that was to have your face buried in a book. Like churches during the Middle Ages, books conferred instant sanctuary. Once you entered one, you couldn’t be disturbed.

“I think parents should do their best not to be unhappy. That’s the worst thing for children—to have unhappy parents.

Never make assumptions about people. You never know who can and will want to help you until you ask. So you should never assume someone can’t or won’t because of their age, or job, or other interests, or financial situation.

You need to learn to recognize these things right from the start. Evil almost always starts with small cruelties.”

This was not even a particularly big offense in the pantheon of book club crimes, where the worst sin one could commit was not to read the book in question—

The teacher says: “Loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern world, so full of freedom, independence and our own egotistical selves.”