I'm struck by that quote of Annie Dillard's meant to motivate writers to do their best work... write as if you are addressing a terminal patient...

When my dad was dying, I was struck by how procedural it was; consciously his efforts went to relinquishing life and even as he knew this and we knew this, still, there were days when carried up on a draught of feeling incrementally better than the day before, hope could sneak in and whisper lies about miracles. I don't know if there was anything I could have written for him then. I was, then, even younger than I am now. I felt, very much like V. S. Naipaul, that I was a writer, but that I had a “writing blankness inside me.” So I could only tell my father, whom I called Pa, that I would dedicate my first book to him. (I have a vague idea it will be about agriculture.)

For now, all I can imagine offering terminal patients is silence. Maybe a view of the sunsets: look how beautifully the day flames as it dies.