What Matters Most by Diane Button

WHAT MATTERS MOST by Diane Button probes “Lessons the Dying Teach Us About Living.” I have a very kind friend interested in becoming a death doula and I think that is probably why I originally requested this text. However, a dear aunt was just diagnosed with cancer last week and is already in hospice, so this book feels even more poignant as I watch the grace and stoicism with which she is approaching death. Button has been acting as a death doula for a couple of decades and each chapter in WHAT MATTERS MOST shares a story of one of her patients. near the end, she provides a list of six questions designed to help take steps towards a meaningful life: (1) Who matters most? (2) What matters most? (3) What worries you most when lying awake in bed at night? (4) What brings you joy when you are awake in the daytime? (5) What is left unsaid? And (6) What is left undone? Readers will clearly be moved by the readings and by the reflection on a meaningful life which this compelling book prompts. Each chapter end a with a “lesson” like “Don’t forget to count your joys” or “There is power in an intentional pause or “We don’t Have to wait for a special moment to celebrate. Find the moment in the present.”  This is a beautiful book.