Love into Being

Loved Into Being is a true story about stroke told through the eyes of an eldest child. I wrote this book after two years of post-stroke caregiving for my dad (Bill Bodak), as a tribute to caregivers and a portrait of a person seeking medical assistance in dying. It was my attempt to capture the unique and universal experiences of shock, loss, grief, family, choice and care. The book itself has been used to anchor conversations around end-of-life choice and has also been a good companion to people losing parents, people shocked by catastrophic health events, people considering what their role might be in a parent’s decline and anyone who has ever had to provide care in the midst of extraordinary conditions.

As a clinician, it has been a growing edge for me to share such a personal story so publicly. The vulnerability of this exposure has brought beautiful conversations into my connections with clients and extraordinary patients into my office. This work has brought me to numerous public discussions on grief and loss as well as medically assisted death. I enjoy weaving these conversations into community through the lens of what it means to be well.