A Hospice Nurse on Embracing the Grace of Dying

October 25, 2023

(New York Times) – A decade ago, Hadley Vlahos was lost. She was a young single mother, searching for meaning and struggling to make ends meet while she navigated nursing school. After earning her degree, working in immediate care, she made the switch to hospice nursing and changed the path of her life. Vlahos, who is 31, found herself drawn to the uncanny, intense and often unexplainable emotional, physical and intellectual gray zones that come along with caring for those at the end of their lives, areas of uncertainty that she calls “the in-between.” That’s also the title of her first book, which was published this summer. “The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life’s Final Moments” is structured around her experiences — tragic, graceful, earthy and, at times, apparently supernatural — with 11 of her hospice patients, as well as her mother-in-law, who was also dying. The book has so far spent 13 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. (Read More)