Winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award

Loving Choices, Peaceful Passing Why My Family Chose Hospice

There is no guidebook for when, and how, to stop treatment of a terminal illness. This deeply reflective narrative about choices in living and dying gives an intimate account of how the myriad end-of-life decisions affect a family. Bob Vallee had the courage to accept his impending death and lived out his final days at home in his daughter’s care. He passed peacefully, in his sleep, twenty-nine days after entering hospice. 

Peace is a place that lies between what is lost and what still remains. Kathleen Vallee Stein presents a lens-shifting view of role reversal as she takes on more, and sometimes unexpected, responsibility for her parents. Her service to her father was a gift of love and gave him the dignity we all deserve in the last days of our lives.  A truly skilled writer, Stein’s attention to detail sensitively recaptures events, without falling prey to nostalgia.
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Read this book to consider choices you may make for yourself or the ones you love. 

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"Stein’s story of her family’s hospice experience opens the reader’s heart while it informs, and dispels, myths. In a culture that avoids talking about death, this book opens the door to much-needed healing discourse."

Erica Silverman, Librarian and author of Jack (Not Jackie) and Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa series

"Kathleen Vallee Stein tells the story of her family’s experience with hospice and the choices that must be made to give her father a dignified and peaceful death. Loving Choices, Peaceful Passing: Why My Family Chose Hospice is a case-study in hospice care and how it can provide the medical, emotional and social support families need to navigate the end of a life. As an RN, I highly recommend this book to anyone working with patients and families who interact with hospice care. It helped me understand the challenges families face and the peace they can experience in giving their loved ones a 'good death.'" -- Ben Rooney, RN

This is me with my dear friend Edie Taylor at my book launch in April 2019. She told me after she read the book that she "felt like part of the family so very much." ​

​Amazon customer review, May 2, 2019
Ms. Stein's own experience provides a window into how to solve problems (of mortality, of caring for a loved one, of the terrors and rewards of responsibility) that will eventually come to many of us. In doing so she provides us with the understanding and knowledge that we CAN handle the emotional ups and downs and the choices we may have to make as our parents become less able to manage their own care.

It is written in an honest, easy, almost conversational style that brings us into her own family experience. She does not sugar coat the story of her own family, yet I didn't want to stop reading even though this chapter in life can be uncomfortable at best. A great contribution to the subject. Very well done!
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