Editorial

Death is part of life, but a natural death seldom receives the attention that Beverly Leo's did. She wanted it that way, and strong-willed person that she was, she got it.

Bev died of a rare lung disease Monday night at the Hospice House in Concord. We're grateful to Bev's caregivers and to her family for acceding to her wishes to allow a Monitor photographer and reporter to be professional witnesses at her bedside. Lori Duff and Joelle Farrell spent six weeks chronicling her decline.

The death-with-dignity movement has able shepherds in Concord. Pleasant View Center and the Hospice House both provided cutting-edge care, allowing Bev the death she desired and the prerogatives all terminally ill people deserve in death. This meant yielding to the quirks and whims of a remarkable woman who didn't mind a little clutter, who had accepted what disease did to her body and who liked chocolates to the end.

Bev's decision to invite the community to her deathbed through the Monitor also had a profound effect on her family. It exposed her husband, Bill Hatt, and her ex-husband, Roger Leo, for example, to a public recounting of their relationships. What they shared was real family experience, not some television version of it.

In life, Beverly Leo gave her talents to her community in a difficult job that few are called to. Her final gift to a world she loved was to let go of life in a most public way. She wanted to demystify the act of dying, and that is precisely what she did.

- A Monitor Editorial

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