Linda Campanella is a daughter whose grief following her terminally ill mother's death flowed from her broken heart through her fingers and onto the blank pages of what became a memoir about her family's determination to enjoy life even while anticipating death. Linda considers herself an accidental author; her book, she says, essentially wrote itself. Since her mother's death and her book's publication, Linda has written and presented extensively about terminal illness, joyful and purposeful living, dignified and peaceful dying, and the journey through grief to gratitude. She is a very vocal and passionate advocate for compassionate end-of-life care, largely out of gratitude for her family's experience with hospice. She currently serves on the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare's National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award Review Committee. Before starting her own consulting company in 2001, Linda served as chief administrative officer at Trinity College in Hartford, as a senior executive at jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, and as an aerospace trade negotiator in the executive branch of the federal government. She holds a bachelor's degree from Amherst College and a master's degree from Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. She is married to her high school sweetheart, and they have three grown sons.