A Rite of Passage for Later Life: We use rituals to mark the early stages of our lives, like birthdays and graduations — but what about our later years? In this meditative talk about looking both backward and forward, Bob Stein proposes a new tradition of giving away your things (and sharing the stories behind them) as you get older, to reflect on your life so far and open the door to whatever comes next. view here

A video game to cope with grief: When Amy Green’s young son was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor, she made up a bedtime story for his siblings to teach them about cancer. What resulted was a video game, “That Dragon, Cancer,” which takes players on a journey they can’t win. In this beautiful talk about coping with loss, Green brings joy and play to tragedy. “We made a game that’s hard to play,” she says, “because the hardest moments of our lives change us more than any goal we could ever accomplish.” view here

How Loss Helped one Artist Find Beauty in Imperfection: Painter Alyssa Monks finds beauty and inspiration in the unknown, the unpredictable and even the awful. In a poetic, intimate talk, she describes the interaction of life, paint and canvas through her development as an artist, and as a human. view here

Let’s talk about dying: We can’t control if we’ll die, but we can “occupy death,” in the words of Peter Saul, an emergency doctor. He asks us to think about the end of our lives — and to question the modern model of slow, intubated death in hospital. Two big questions can help you start this tough conversation. view here

Stories from a home for terminally ill children: To honor and celebrate young lives cut short, Kathy Hull founded the first freestanding pediatric palliative care facility in the United States, the George Mark Children’s House. Its mission: to give terminally ill children and their families a peaceful place to say goodbye. She shares stories brimming with wisdom, joy, imagination and heartbreaking loss. view here

Talk about death while you’re still healthy: Do you know what you want when you die? Do you know how you want to be remembered? In a candid, heartfelt talk about a subject most of us would rather not discuss, Michelle Knox asks each of us to reflect on our core values around death and share them with our loved ones, so they can make informed decisions without fear of having failed to honor our legacies. “Life would be a lot easier to live if we talked about death now,” Knox says. “We need to discuss these issues when we are fit and healthy so we can take the emotion out of it — and then we can learn not just what is important, but why it’s important.” view here

The 4 stories we tell ourselves about death: Philosopher Stephen Cave begins with a dark but compelling question: When did you first realize you were going to die? And even more interesting: Why do we humans so often resist the inevitability of death? Cave explores four narratives — common across civilizations — that we tell ourselves “in order to help us manage the terror of death.” view here

The Journey through Loss and Grief: In her brutally honest, ironically funny and widely read meditation on death, “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” the late author and filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal gave her husband Jason very public permission to move on and find happiness. A year after her death, Jason offers candid insights on the often excruciating process of moving through and with loss — as well as some quiet wisdom for anyone else experiencing life-changing grief. View here

We don’t “move on” from grief. We move forward with it: In a talk that’s by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let’s face it, affect us all, is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief. “A grieving person is going to laugh again and smile again,” she says. “They’re going to move forward. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve moved on.” View here

We need a heroic narrative for death: Amanda Bennett and her husband were passionate and full of life all throughout their lives together — and up until the final days, too. Bennett gives a sweet yet powerful talk on why, for the loved ones of the dying, having hope for a happy ending shouldn’t warrant a diagnosis of “denial.” She calls for a more heroic narrative for death — to match the ones we have in life. view here

What the Irish wake teaches us about living and dying: For centuries, the Irish funeral wake has served as a time for people to grieve a life lost and celebrate a life lived, together. In this profound and lyrical talk, poet Kevin Toolis laments the fear and denial of death that characterizes increasingly individualistic societies. He reasons that living life fully means embracing our shared mortality — and offers simple ways to reconnect with your community, the people you love and even yourself. view here

What makes life worth living in the face of death: In this deeply moving talk, Lucy Kalanithi reflects on life and purpose, sharing the story of her late husband, Paul, a young neurosurgeon who turned to writing after his terminal cancer diagnosis. “Engaging in the full range of experience — living and dying, love and loss — is what we get to do,” Kalanithi says. “Being human doesn’t happen despite suffering — it happens within it.” view here

What really matters at the end of life?: At the end of our lives, what do we most wish for? For many, it’s simply comfort, respect, love. BJ Miller is a hospice and palliative medicine physician who thinks deeply about how to create a dignified, graceful end of life for his patients. Take the time to savor this moving talk, which asks big questions about how we think on death and honor life. view here

What we can do to die well: The healthcare industry in America is so focused on pathology, surgery and pharmacology — on what doctors “do” to patients — that it often overlooks the values of the human beings it’s supposed to care for. Palliative care physician Timothy Ihrig explains the benefits of a different approach, one that fosters a patient’s overall quality of life. view here

Why language matters when you are dying: Dr Mark Taubert discusses the language we use when discussing terminal illness. He gives us (often very funny) examples of the language that his patients have used, and reads to us from his famous open letter to David Bowie. view here

Why stay in Cernobyl? Because it’s home: Chernobyl was the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident and, for the past 27 years, the area around the plant has been known as the Exclusion Zone. And yet, a community of about 200 people live there — almost all of them elderly women. These proud grandmas defied orders to relocate because their connection to their homeland and to their community are “forces that rival even radiation.” view here