Ashley Areyan is the Development and Community Engagement Director at the Institute for Human Caring at Providence St. Joseph Health, based in Los Angeles. She is working with The Conversation Project to help bring advanced…

As I sat on the beach that day — sand between my toes, with my best friends from college at my side — I thought of how conversations about how we want to live at the end of our lives can and should happen whenever the opportunity arises.

Garrick Colwell was a natural fit professionally and personally to get involved in The Conversation Project (TCP). Since 1987, he had been a hospice volunteer. Then, four years ago, his wife was diagnosed with cancer,…