This paper aims to contribute to current discussions on care in the social sciences through an exploration of care work in contexts of dying. Based on ethnographic work conducted in a public hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I discuss the implications of caring for oneself and others, while managing the consequences of impending death – what I call the burden of finitude – as a way of developing a definition of care as labor and practice. Caring is defined as the ongoing labor of handling goods – resources and moral values –, “bads” – troubles and issues associated with caring for a person in need – and bodies. Care is then a particular form of social action that cannot be reduced to rational instrumental or normative value-laden action. In conclusion, I argue for an understanding of care that bridges the gap between those who study it from a political economic perspective (Fraser 2016, Graeber 2019) and who view it as a modality of practice (Mol, Moser, Pols 2011).