“I Could Face My Own Mortality, but My Son’s Was Another Story.”

Are you afraid to talk about death? In our culture and time it is not fashionable for us to linger on death. Extreme measures are taken to extend life. Tropes and platitudes abound: “Think positive.” See cancer as a “gift.” But I had made peace with my own mortality. Now I found that learning to live alongside even the mortality of a child I loved gave me a kind of strength that denialism could not, because it was a relief to acknowledge something that felt more true."

My latest illustration for the TIES column of the NYTimes is for the essay about one mother who could face her own mortality, but her son’s was another story: