Hers has been a journey from denial to acceptance. Today she is a passionate advocate of the terminally ill’s right to choose to end their life free from pain. Brittany, a teacher, started a “conversation” about assisted suicide, Debbie says, when she posted a YouTube video shortly before her death (it has now amassed 12 million views), and Debbie is determined to keep the conversation going. She celebrated when the Governor of California signed the End of Life Option Act into law in 2015. But as well as encouraging others to think and talk about death, the book is a way of celebrating Brittany’s life.

“My daughter was a woman who didn’t candy-coat anything. She was very direct and honest. She said to me at one time, ‘Death is not a fairy tale. Why is everyone trying to make it so?’ Yet, she was also about life. She lived every moment. She loved to travel, to see new places and how other people lived.”

Brittany’s diagnosis came after a year of debilitating headaches, and Debbie says her first reaction was to fight to find a cure. “There were times when my denial was so strong that it is embarrassing for me,” she says. “I wanted to hang on to the hope that we would find a treatment.”