An Age-Old Fear Grows More Common: ‘I’m Going To Die Alone’

(By Judith Graham for KFF Health News)

This summer, at dinner with her best friend, Jacki Barden raised an uncomfortable topic: the possibility that she might die alone.

“I have no children, no husband, no siblings,” Barden remembered saying. “Who’s going to hold my hand while I die?”

Barden, 75, never had children. She’s lived on her own in western Massachusetts since her husband passed away in 2003. “You hit a point in your life when you’re not climbing up anymore, you’re climbing down,” she told me. “You start thinking about what it’s going to be like at the end.” Continue reading here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health polity news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

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