No one can be adequately prepared to receive a phone call saying your loved one is dying a slow but inevitable death. Yet on that day, as I looked out my office window in Atlanta, savoring the changing of the seasons, the wonderful show of colors of the turning leaves, and a gradual shift to the approaching early darkness of winter, I received the call from a doctor in New York City saying that my only sibling, Elliott, had been diagnosed with stage IV liver cancer, with a prognosis of three to six months to live. That unexpected phone call began a series of emotional and obligatory responses...