To Grace Lopez with love — and apologies that your end wasn’t better - by Steve Lopez

"In our rapidly aging country, more than a million older Americans receive hospice care each year. It’s covered by Medicare, and hospitals often recommend it when they know death is near and have nothing left to offer.

In retrospect, we could have done some advance research, but like a lot of families, we hadn’t and so had to scramble, making quick decisions at a time we were already overwhelmed and trying to keep grief at bay."