The 10 Most Comforting TV Episodes About Death

My 12-year-old miniature schnauzer Czerny died earlier this month. As friends here know, he wasn’t just my puppy — he was my support dog and my best friend. Philip and I had two dogs before Czerny, and both brought something wonderful to our lives, but Czerny was special. He had a joie de vivre and a sense of wonder that were infectious. Every meal was the best meal. Every walk was the best walk. Every trip was the best trip. We adopted Czerny in early 2009, shortly after I was diagnosed with degenerative autoimmune disease. He was with me when my health started to decline in 2011, and when it dramatically worsened in 2016 and 2017. Eventually, as my world got smaller, as my life was forced into a very predictable routine, I began to see the world through Czerny’s eyes, and it brought me new purpose and vitality. I came to realize that sameness doesn’t have to be sad or dull — that you can still greet a familiar day with an eager heart.

Cold Case season 4

Flashback #1: I was on the phone with my grandmother Sophie, whom I adored, sometime in the late 1980's; it was a Sunday night, and suddenly she said she needed to go. Her detective was on. It took me a few moments to realize that "her detective" was Jessica Fletcher, and that she never missed an episode of Murder, She Wrote. I got off the phone quickly, because we had learned never to interfere with my grandmother's TV time.

Twenty years later, from 2003 to 2010, Lilly Rush of Cold Case was my Sunday night detective. As creator Meredith Stiehm conceived her, and as star Kathryn Morris (brilliantly) played her, Lilly Rush -- the Philly homicide detective so immersed in the cold cases she's investigating that she keeps photos of the victims on her nightstand -- was an original, and she headed up a show that was, at its best, far more affecting than the other Jerry Bruckheimer procedurals.