Dear Life: A Doctor's Story of Love and Loss

As a specialist in palliative medicine, Dr. Rachel Clarke chooses to inhabit a place many people would find too tragic to contemplate. Every day she tries to bring care and comfort to those reaching the end of their lives and to help make dying more bearable.

Rachel's training was tested in 2017 when her beloved GP's father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She learned that nothing - even the best palliative care - can sugar-coat the pain of losing someone you love.

And yet, she argues, in a hospice, there is more of what matters in life - more love, strength, kindness, joy, tenderness, grace, and compassion - than you could ever imagine. For if there is a difference between people who know they are dying and the rest of us, it is simply this: the terminally ill know their time is running out, while we live as though we have all the time in the world.

Dear Life is a book about the vital importance of human connection by the doctor we would all want by our sides in a crisis. It is a love letter - to a father, a profession, and life itself.