Top Five Regrets of the Dying

Author: Bronnie Ware
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1401956009
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
Revised edition of the best-selling memoir that has been read by over a million people worldwide with translations in 29 languages. After too many years of unfulfilling work, Bronnie Ware began searching for a job with heart. Despite having no formal qualifications or previous experience in the field, she found herself working in palliative care. During the time she spent tending to those who were dying, Bronnie's life was transformed. Later, she wrote an Internet blog post, outlining the most common regrets that the people she had cared for had expressed. The post gained so much momentum that it was viewed by more than three million readers worldwide in its first year. At the request of many, Bronnie subsequently wrote a book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, to share her story. Bronnie has had a colourful and diverse life. By applying the lessons of those nearing their death to her own life, she developed an understanding that it is possible for everyone, if we make the right choices, to die with peace of mind. In this revised edition of the best-selling memoir that has been read by over a million people worldwide, with translations in 29 languages, Bronnie expresses how significant these regrets are and how we can positively address these issues while we still have the time. The Top Five Regrets of the Dying gives hope for a better world. It is a courageous, life-changing book that will leave you feeling more compassionate and inspired to live the life you are truly here to live.

Final Gifts

Author: Maggie Callanan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451677294
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
In this moving and compassionate classic—now updated with new material from the authors—hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley share their intimate experiences with patients at the end of life, drawn from more than twenty years’ experience tending the terminally ill. Through their stories we come to appreciate the near-miraculous ways in which the dying communicate their needs, reveal their feelings, and even choreograph their own final moments; we also discover the gifts—of wisdom, faith, and love—that the dying leave for the living to share. Filled with practical advice on responding to the requests of the dying and helping them prepare emotionally and spiritually for death, Final Gifts shows how we can help the dying person live fully to the very end.

On Living

Author: Kerry Egan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1594634823
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
"A poetic and philosophical and brave and uplifting meditation on how important it is to make peace and meaning of our lives while we still have them.” –Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of Eat Pray Love "Illuminating, unflinching and ultimately inspiring... A book to treasure.” –People Magazine A hospice chaplain passes on wisdom on giving meaning to life, from those taking leave of it. As a hospice chaplain, Kerry Egan didn’t offer sermons or prayers, unless they were requested; in fact, she found, the dying rarely want to talk about God, at least not overtly. Instead, she discovered she’d been granted a powerful chance to witness firsthand what she calls the “spiritual work of dying”—the work of finding or making meaning of one’s life, the experiences it’s contained and the people who have touched it, the betrayals, wounds, unfinished business, and unrealized dreams. Instead of talking, she mainly listened: to stories of hope and regret, shame and pride, mystery and revelation and secrets held too long. Most of all, though, she listened as her patients talked about love—love for their children and partners and friends; love they didn’t know how to offer; love they gave unconditionally; love they, sometimes belatedly, learned to grant themselves. This isn’t a book about dying—it’s a book about living. And Egan isn’t just passively bearing witness to these stories. An emergency procedure during the birth of her first child left her physically whole but emotionally and spiritually adrift. Her work as a hospice chaplain healed her, from a brokenness she came to see we all share. Each of her patients taught her something about what matters in the end—how to find courage in the face of fear or the strength to make amends; how to be profoundly compassionate and fiercely empathetic; how to see the world in grays instead of black and white. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along all their precious and necessary gifts.

The Good Death

Author: Ann Neumann
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807076996
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
Following the death of her father, journalist and hospice volunteer Ann Neumann sets out to examine what it means to die well in the United States. When Ann Neumann’s father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she left her job and moved back to her hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She became his full-time caregiver—cooking, cleaning, and administering medications. When her father died, she was undone by the experience, by grief and the visceral quality of dying. Neumann struggled to put her life back in order and found herself haunted by a question: Was her father’s death a good death? The way we talk about dying and the way we actually die are two very different things, she discovered, and many of us are shielded from what death actually looks like. To gain a better understanding, Neumann became a hospice volunteer and set out to discover what a good death is today. She attended conferences, academic lectures, and grief sessions in church basements. She went to Montana to talk with the attorney who successfully argued for the legalization of aid in dying, and to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to listen to “pro-life” groups who believe the removal of feeding tubes from some patients is tantamount to murder. Above all, she listened to the stories of those who were close to death. What Neumann found is that death in contemporary America is much more complicated than we think. Medical technologies and increased life expectancies have changed the very definition of medical death. And although death is our common fate, it is also a divisive issue that we all experience differently. What constitutes a good death is unique to each of us, depending on our age, race, economic status, culture, and beliefs. What’s more, differing concepts of choice, autonomy, and consent make death a contested landscape, governed by social, medical, legal, and religious systems. In these pages, Neumann brings us intimate portraits of the nurses, patients, bishops, bioethicists, and activists who are shaping the way we die. The Good Death presents a fearless examination of how we approach death, and how those of us close to dying loved ones live in death’s wake.

The Art of Dying Well

Author: Katy Butler
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1501135473
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
This “comforting…thoughtful” (The Washington Post) guide to maintaining a high quality of life—from resilient old age to the first inklings of a serious illness to the final breath—by the New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door is a “roadmap to the end that combines medical, practical, and spiritual guidance” (The Boston Globe). “A common sense path to define what a ‘good’ death looks like” (USA TODAY), The Art of Dying Well is about living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change. Packed with extraordinarily helpful insights and inspiring true stories, award-winning journalist Katy Butler shows how to thrive in later life (even when coping with a chronic medical condition), how to get the best from our health system, and how to make your own “good death” more likely. Butler explains how to successfully age in place, why to pick a younger doctor and how to have an honest conversation with them, when not to call 911, and how to make your death a sacred rite of passage rather than a medical event. This handbook of preparations—practical, communal, physical, and spiritual—will help you make the most of your remaining time, be it decades, years, or months. Based on Butler’s experience caring for aging parents, and hundreds of interviews with people who have successfully navigated our fragmented health system and helped their loved ones have good deaths, The Art of Dying Well also draws on the expertise of national leaders in family medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, oncology, and hospice. This “empowering guide clearly outlines the steps necessary to prepare for a beautiful death without fear” (Shelf Awareness).

The Inner Life of the Dying Person

Author: Allan Kellehear
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231536933
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Book Description
This unique book recounts the experience of facing one's death solely from the dying person's point of view rather than from the perspective of caregivers, survivors, or rescuers. Such unmediated access challenges assumptions about the emotional and spiritual dimensions of dying, showing readers that—along with suffering, loss, anger, sadness, and fear—we can also feel courage, love, hope, reminiscence, transcendence, transformation, and even happiness as we die. A work that is at once psychological, sociological, and philosophical, this book brings together testimonies of those dying from terminal illness, old age, sudden injury or trauma, acts of war, and the consequences of natural disasters and terrorism. It also includes statements from individuals who are on death row, in death camps, or planning suicide. Each form of dying addressed highlights an important set of emotions and narratives that often eclipses stereotypical renderings of dying and reflects the numerous contexts in which this journey can occur outside of hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices. Chapters focus on common emotional themes linked to dying, expanding and challenging them through first-person accounts and analyses of relevant academic and clinical literature in psycho-oncology, palliative care, gerontology, military history, anthropology, sociology, cultural and religious studies, poetry, and fiction. The result is an all-encompassing investigation into an experience that will eventually include us all and is more surprising and profound than anyone can imagine.

Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them)

Author: Sallie Tisdale
Publisher: Gallery Books
ISBN: 1501182188
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CRITICS’ TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR “In its loving, fierce specificity, this book on how to die is also a blessedly saccharine-free guide for how to live” (The New York Times). Former NEA fellow and Pushcart Prize-winning writer Sallie Tisdale offers a lyrical, thought-provoking, yet practical perspective on death and dying in Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them). Informed by her many years working as a nurse, with more than a decade in palliative care, Tisdale provides a frank, direct, and compassionate meditation on the inevitable. From the sublime (the faint sound of Mozart as you take your last breath) to the ridiculous (lessons on how to close the sagging jaw of a corpse), Tisdale leads us through the peaks and troughs of death with a calm, wise, and humorous hand. Advice for Future Corpses is more than a how-to manual or a spiritual bible: it is a graceful compilation of honest and intimate anecdotes based on the deaths Tisdale has witnessed in her work and life, as well as stories from cultures, traditions, and literature around the world. Tisdale explores all the heartbreaking, beautiful, terrifying, confusing, absurd, and even joyful experiences that accompany the work of dying, including: A Good Death: What does it mean to die “a good death”? Can there be more than one kind of good death? What can I do to make my death, or the deaths of my loved ones, good? Communication: What to say and not to say, what to ask, and when, from the dying, loved ones, doctors, and more. Last Months, Weeks, Days, and Hours: What you might expect, physically and emotionally, including the limitations, freedoms, pain, and joy of this unique time. Bodies: What happens to a body after death? What options are available to me after my death, and how do I choose—and make sure my wishes are followed? Grief: “Grief is the story that must be told over and over...Grief is the breath after the last one.” Beautifully written and compulsively readable, Advice for Future Corpses offers the resources and reassurance that we all need for planning the ends of our lives, and is essential reading for future corpses everywhere. “Sallie Tisdale’s elegantly understated new book pretends to be a user’s guide when in fact it’s a profound meditation” (David Shields, bestselling author of Reality Hunger).

What Does It Feel Like to Die?

Author: Jennie Dear
Publisher: Citadel Press
ISBN: 0806539879
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
A compassionate, honest, and illuminating look at the dying process . . . As a long-time hospice volunteer, Jennie Dear has helped countless patients, families, and caregivers cope with the many challenges of the dying process. Inspired by her own personal journey with her mother’s long-term illness, Dear demystifies the experience of dying for everyone whose lives it touches. She spoke to doctors, nurses, and caregivers, as well as families, friends, and the patients themselves. The result is a brilliantly researched, eye-opening account that combines the latest medical findings with sensitive human insights to offer real emotional support and answers to some of the questions that affect us all. Does dying hurt? A frank discussion of whether dying has to be painful—and why it sometimes is even when treatment is readily available. Is there a better way to cope with dying? Comforting stories of people who found peace in the face of death , and some of the expert methods they used for getting there. The last few hours: What does it feel like to die? Powerful glimpses from dedicated professionals into the physical experiences of people in their final moments—plus comforting words and insights from those who are there to help.

A Better Death

Author: Ranjana Srivastava
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1925750965
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
A powerful, timely exploration of the art of living and dying on our own terms by one of Australia’s most respected voices Of all the experiences we share, two universal events bookend our lives: we were all born and we will all die. We don't have a choice in how we enter the world but we can have a say in how we leave it. In order to die well, we must be prepared to contemplate our mortality and to broach it with our loved ones, who are often called upon to make important decisions on our behalf. These are some of the most important conversations we can have with each other - to find peace, kindness and gratitude for what has gone before, and acceptance of what is to come. Dr Ranjana Srivastava draws on two decades of experience to share her observations and advice on leading a meaningful life and finding dignity and composure at the end. With an emphasis on advocacy, leaving a legacy and staying true to our deepest convictions, Srivastava tells stories of strength, hope and resilience in the face of grief and offers an optimistic meditation on approaching the end of life. Intelligent, warm and deeply affecting, A Better Death is a passionate exploration of the art of living and dying well. Dr Ranjana Srivastava OAM is a practising oncologist, award-winning writer, broadcaster and Fulbright scholar. See www.ranjanasrivastava.com

What the Dying Teach Us

Author: Samuel L Oliver
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317790308
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Book Description
What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living is a spiritual approach to health care that teaches the reader about values, hope, and faith through actual experiences of terminally ill persons. This unique approach to health care teaches the living how to deal with grief and the bereavement process through faith and prayer. Priests, pastors, chaplains, and psychotherapists will learn how to treat parishioners or patients with the values the dying leave behind, allowing part of their deceased loved one’s beliefs and teachings to guide them through the grieving process. In the end, you will also become aware of your spiritual self while helping others heal and renew their soul.While What the Dying Teach Us concentrates on the values you can learn from the terminally ill, the author includes his own views on: how our tears manifest the depth into which our relationship with a deceased loved one travels how dimensions of reality lead us to appreciate the present experiencing events in life without judgment or comparison the role faith may play in health care as a healer of the terminally ill how the strength of prayer can drastically change livesWhat the Dying Teach Us celebrates the spirit loved ones leave behind and teaches you how to surrender into an eternal relationship with them. Furthermore, because of this experience, you will be able to find a new and deeper realization of your own existence. What the Dying Teach Us will help you spiritually connect with yourself as well as with deceased loved ones that continue to live on through faith.