Being Mortal is my in-real life book club pick for March. I wasn’t looking forward to reading it, as I thought it seemed boring and dry. But from just a few pages in, my whole view changed.

The author’s writing is phenomenal. He takes real stories about real people and weaves them into a narrative, while also expressing his concerns clearly and with factual evidence about the medical industry with our aging and terminally-ill population. It’s best-selling book for a reason.

But the number one reason why I found this book to be so good? I connected and related with it. My mom passed away 3.5 years ago after a rapid battle with cancer. It seemed like one minute she was visiting our family doctor about a bit of pain in her arm and back, and the next she was admitted to the hospital and never came home. The cancer progressed so rapidly that there seemed to be no way to stop it. So my Mom, with my Dad by her side, had to figure out how to accept and come to peace with her fate.

Sometimes there is only so much that doctors can do. Sometimes there is more they can do but we have to draw the line and think about how we want to spend our final days. That is the point that Atul Gawande is making in his book. Medical science has finate power. It can not cure everything. Being Mortal is about taking our own biology into consideration and accepting that limits do exist. So with that in mind, how should our final days be lived? What matters most to you? For my mom, it was alone time with my Dad on that final weekend. My brother and I went to a family wedding and had a night of joy and fun before our world as we knew it completely changed.

This book is a must-read. It’s an important read. And the author has certainly shared an area of thought that needs more attention.