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Chasing Daylight
Book

Chasing Daylight

How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life

Eugene O'Kelly
McGraw-Hill, 2005

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Editorial Rating

9
getAbstract International Book Award Winner 2006

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

What if a doctor looked you in the eyes today and told you flat-out that you had about 100 days to live, and there was zero chance anything could change that shocking reality? What would you do? How would you spend your last days? In May 2005, Eugene O'Kelly, then the CEO of KPMG, received the bitter news that he wouldn't live out the year due to brain cancer. An accountant by training and a type-A personality by nature, O'Kelly set in motion a strategy for making the most of his last days. Part of that plan included writing a book on how to bring closure to life and prepare for the great transition to come. One conclusion: Sometimes you have to work hard at the "business of dying." O'Kelly's stoic, rational courage in the face of the unknown has produced this gift for all those he left behind. getAbstract recommends it highly for its priceless lessons about how to live.

Take-Aways

  • Eugene O'Kelly, chairman and CEO of KPMG, U.S., had a loving wife and family.
  • Doctors informed him, at age 53, that inoperable brain cancer would kill him in about three months.
  • He came to accept the news as a blessing and made the most of the time he had left to close out his life gracefully.

About the Author

At 53, Eugene O'Kelly was chairman and CEO of KPMG. A lifetime New Yorker, he started with KPMG as an assistant accountant in 1972 and worked his way to the top, becoming U.S. CEO in April 2002. Andrew Postman assisted in writing this book. Philip Ruppel edited it. Corinne O'Kelly wrote the last chapter.

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