To die with dignity: my young husband’s final wish came with a $65,000 price tag

My husband, Craig, didn’t want to spend his last days in the hospital. His fight with bladder cancer then became a battle to get him hospice care at home “This isn’t where I want to die,” my husband, Craig, whispered to me. We were in a shared room on the top floor of NYU Langone hospital in Manhattan, the window obscured by a long privacy curtain. I barely had space to stand next to his hospital bed under the bright fluorescent lights, our thoughts interrupted by the constant beeping of machines. Tall and athletic, Craig loved staying out dancing until the early mornings at Bushwick clubs. He moved from England in his 20s for a PhD in comparative literature and never left. “As a bloody foreigner I grew up with the National Health Service, and thus did not immediately understand the US concern with healthcare costs,” he once wrote years ago. “In Britain, it’s free.” Nearly three months after that day in the hospital, I helped him pass away from bladder cancer in the home hospice of our Brooklyn apartment, exactly where he wanted to be. I was 37 and Craig was 49. It cost over $65,000 – money we didn’t have, raised in a panic from friends and family – to give