About a month ago, as I was wrapping up a long week in the office, I received a call from Gayathri Ramprasad, the founder of ASHA International, who asked me for an endorsement of her upcoming book . Gayathri’s book is a memoir of her journey of living with clinical depression. As we talked, Gayathri told me about the recent death by suicide of an Indian boy in her local community and the intense stigma and shame of mental illness in her culture. She wanted me to be informed and told me she would be sending information so I could learn more about these issues.
Read MoreThe passage of Dr. Dean K. Brooks this past week, just six weeks before his 97th birthday, didn’t catch those of us who knew him and loved him—and you couldn’t know him and not fall in love with him—off guard. He fell about two weeks before he died and he told me, “Bob, I’m not going to make it.” He had reason to know about death. Several times, he talked with me and others about his “NDEs”—near death experiences, in which he realized he was dying and entered a beautiful room with blue flowers all around. Each time, a caring nurse lightly touched his chest and told him he would be alright. But this time it didn’t happen that way and I think he was ready.
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