“This extraordinary book helps dispel fear around death and dying—revealing it to be a natural part of our soul’s evolution.”—Laura Lynne Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Signs and The Light Between Us
Talking about death and dying is considered taboo in polite company, and even in the medical field. Our ideas about dying are confusing at best: Will our memories flash before our eyes? Regrets consume our thoughts? Does a bright light appear at the end of a tunnel? For most people, it will be a slower process, one eased with preparedness, good humor, and a bit of faith. At the forefront of changing attitudes around palliative care is hospice nurse Hadley Vlahos, who shows that end-of-life care can teach us just as much about how to live as it does about how we die.
Vlahos was raised in a strict religious household, but began questioning her beliefs in high school after the sudden death of a friend. When she got pregnant at nineteen, she was shunned by her community and enrolled herself in nursing school to be able to support herself and her baby. But nursing soon became more than a job: when she focused on palliative care and hospice work, it became a calling.
In The In-Between, Vlahos recounts the most impactful experiences she’s had with the people she’s worked with—from the woman who never once questioned her faith until she was close to death, to the older man seeing visions of his late daughter, to the young patient who laments that she spent too much of her short life worrying about what others thought of her—while also sharing her own fascinating journey.
Written with profound insight, humility, and respect, The In-Between is a heartrending memoir that shows how caring for others can transform a life while also offering wisdom and comfort for those dealing with loss and providing inspiration for how to live now.
“This extraordinary book helps dispel fear around death and dying—revealing it to be a natural part of our soul’s evolution.”—Laura Lynne Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Signs and The Light Between Us
Talking about death and dying is considered taboo in polite company, and even in the medical field. Our ideas about dying are confusing at best: Will our memories flash before our eyes? Regrets consume our thoughts? Does a bright light appear at the end of a tunnel? For most people, it will be a slower process, one eased with preparedness, good humor, and a bit of faith. At the forefront of changing attitudes around palliative care is hospice nurse Hadley Vlahos, who shows that end-of-life care can teach us just as much about how to live as it does about how we die.
Vlahos was raised in a strict religious household, but began questioning her beliefs in high school after the sudden death of a friend. When she got pregnant at nineteen, she was shunned by her community and enrolled herself in nursing school to be able to support herself and her baby. But nursing soon became more than a job: when she focused on palliative care and hospice work, it became a calling.
In The In-Between, Vlahos recounts the most impactful experiences she’s had with the people she’s worked with—from the woman who never once questioned her faith until she was close to death, to the older man seeing visions of his late daughter, to the young patient who laments that she spent too much of her short life worrying about what others thought of her—while also sharing her own fascinating journey.
Written with profound insight, humility, and respect, The In-Between is a heartrending memoir that shows how caring for others can transform a life while also offering wisdom and comfort for those dealing with loss and providing inspiration for how to live now.
Reviews-
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June 15, 2023
A hospice nurse writes of the difficult--but sometimes sublime--moments surrounding the end of life. As Vlahos tells it, she wasn't cowed at the thought of tending to patients whose recoveries were off the table. With family in the funeral business, she writes, "I grew up with an understanding that death was natural, and it felt normal to me, not scary or mysterious." One normal part of the deal, she notes, is that most of her time as a hospice nurse is spent simply on the way from one home to another, the places where most of her patients have chosen to end their days. That's usually not fraught, though in one memorable account she tells the story of a man she tended to in a homeless camp who worried that she was in danger of being hurt in an auto accident--a prophecy that very nearly came true. Some of her patients are proud and aloof, others a touch disconnected. From all of them, the author gleans interesting lessons. One concerns "the surge," a temporary revival of life force that signals not the restoration of health but instead the body's last hurrah. Another is her conviction, after years on the job, that "we seem to have some control over when we die," some choosing to wait until their loved ones have left the room, others until a loved one arrives from out of town. Particularly moving is Vlahos' depiction of the stillness that comes when a person has died: Where it may have been two people in the room before, after the patient dies, it's just her to document "the tangible shift in the air in that moment when a person leaves their body." Although some of the author's anecdotes run a touch too long and there's a little repetitiveness to the book, one gets the sense early on that a person could do worse than die under her empathetic--not sympathetic, she takes pains to explain--care. Gentle encouragement for all those who live under life's running clock and for those who love them.COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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July 3, 2023
Vlahos recounts her six-year stint as a hospice nurse in her often-moving debut memoir. When she became pregnant at 19, Vlahos intended to get an abortion, until she reluctantly attended a church service with her mother and was convinced to keep the baby. She pursued a career in nursing to support her son, and after coordinating hospice care for a patient whose scheduled provider flaked, was offered a position as a hospice nurse herself. Sharing experiences that complicated her once-agnostic ideas about death, Vlahos recalls how her supervisor insisted that a dying woman’s visions of her deceased sister were not hallucinations but evidence that she was “crossing over.” Another nurse claimed that dying people all “see the same thing” (their own deceased relatives) irrespective of “race, religion, or any other factor you could think of.” Vlahos eventually witnesses similar occurrences with her own patients, and dubs the “powerful and peaceful” nonphysical space that lies between this world and “whatever comes next” the “in-between.” Nonreligious readers may not glean much from this account, which veers into firmly faith-based territory, but Vlahos is a pleasant and earnest guide to the dying process. Readers anxious about their loved ones’ end-of-life experiences will find comfort here. Agent: Noah Ballard, Verve Talent and Literary.
