About the Book

“I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone else’s. If I could choose not to have cancer, and continue my life as it was, I wouldn’t do it.” – Matt Gauger.

You’re twenty-two, in love, and just starting a career. The last thing you’re worried about is the purpose of life (whatever that means) and when you’re going to die. If you think about such things, you certainly don’t talk about them.

With his sociable personality and love of music and basketball, Matt had plenty of friends but didn’t really stand out from the crowd. Then, a month before his wedding, he was diagnosed with cancer. Six months later he was dead. But Six Months to Live isn’t really about dying. It’s the story of how Matt and his family and friends struggled to accept his suffering, and how it changed each of them. It’s about facing (rather than avoiding) life’s most important questions, and – instead of going through the motions – living life to the full.

softcover, 4.5 x 8
978-0874866544

Book Trailer

Praise

The text features long quotations from interviews with and diaries of those closest to Gauger among them his wife, parents, brother and doctor and in doing so paints the emotional, spiritual and physical landscape within which this drama unfolded. Hallock admirably avoids hagiography, as do Gauger's loved ones, and instead reveals the ennobling effect dying had on Gauger.

Publisher's Weekly

Deep, fascinating, theologically rich…

Christianity Today

An extraordinary account – simple and profound. Matt’s struggle is one we will all eventually have to go through.

Francis S. MacNutt, author, Healing

A little book, but a grand witness. Matt’s story reminds us that though dying is a gritty and painful process, death does not have the final word.

Gerald L. Sittser, author, A Grace Disguised

Secularists often ask why the good die young, and sometimes very young. Daniel Hallock’s Six Months to Live: Learning from a Young Man with Cancer is a good book to give those facing a death sentence.

Marvin Olasky, WORLD Magazine

Powerful…It is rare to be invited on such and intimate journey.

N. Gordon Cosby, founder, Church of the Savior

Tablet of Contents

  1. The Blow
  2. Gobbler
  3. Cynthia
  4. Life With Chemo
  5. Back to the Front
  6. Learning to Let Go
  7. Before Morning
  8. Ties that Bind
  9. New Seeds
Tags:
Grieving
Faith and Spirituality
Culture of Life