Driving with Dead People

Driving with Dead People PDF Author: Monica Holloway
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847396909
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
At nine years old, Monica Holloway develops a fascination with the local funeral home. Small wonder, with a father who drives his Ford pick up with a Kodak movie camera sitting shotgun just in case he sees an accident, and whose home movies feature more footage of disasters than of his children. In between her father's bouts of violence and abuse, Monica becomes fast friends with Julie Kilner, whose father is the town mortician. She and Julie preferred the casket showroom to the parks and grassy backyards in her hometown of Elk Grove, Ohio, where they would take turns lying in their favourite coffins. In time, Monica and Julie get a job driving the company hearse to pick up bodies from the airport, yet even Monica's growing independence can't protect her from her parents' irresponsibility, and from the feeling that she simply does not deserve to be safe. Little does she know, as she finally strikes out on her own, that her parents' biggest betrayal has yet to be revealed...

Ain't She Pretty: Looking Back - A Funeral Director's Memoirs

Ain't She Pretty: Looking Back - A Funeral Director's Memoirs PDF Author: Barry J. Kughn
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 9781545658772
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Many think of a funeral home as a somber, depressing place. However, the word "home" means it is a place of comfort and a place that brims with life rather than death. "Funerals are for the living" is a commonly known truth. Families who come to a funeral home are often tired from the events leading up to their loved one's death. Sometimes they are traumatized by a sudden death, and sometimes people come to a funeral home to express support, encouragement, and respect for friends. Meeting each person's needs can be overwhelming, but it is an honor and, in many ways, a positive challenge. In this book, I want to share what it is like to be the person who comforts others, lightens their mood, encourages them, and helps them make decisions when they can sometimes barely think. In my case, the role of a funeral director is one that dates back to childhood. I was a "preacher's kid" who accompanied my father to many funerals. Sometimes afterward, especially if a pet had died, I would carry out a funeral in my own back yard, using my bicycle for a hearse, a tiny box for a casket, and garden flowers to decorate a grave. I chose to attend Mortuary College while working at a funeral home and found the work to be fulfilling. Since my first job at a funeral home, I have been amazed at how the human condition plays out in this comforting place. People share memories at a funeral home, they express grief through tears and laughter, and they sometimes return to say thanks to the funeral director who helped them find meaning after a loss. A funeral director is always blessed with families who become regular clientele when they suffer loss, thus a funeral director creates a following and close bond of friendships built on trust and a thankful heart. I hope you enjoy sharing with me in Looking Back to many of my experiences in my life's work in my hometown of Anniston, Alabama.

Driving with Dead People

Driving with Dead People PDF Author: Monica Holloway
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847396909
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
At nine years old, Monica Holloway develops a fascination with the local funeral home. Small wonder, with a father who drives his Ford pick up with a Kodak movie camera sitting shotgun just in case he sees an accident, and whose home movies feature more footage of disasters than of his children. In between her father's bouts of violence and abuse, Monica becomes fast friends with Julie Kilner, whose father is the town mortician. She and Julie preferred the casket showroom to the parks and grassy backyards in her hometown of Elk Grove, Ohio, where they would take turns lying in their favourite coffins. In time, Monica and Julie get a job driving the company hearse to pick up bodies from the airport, yet even Monica's growing independence can't protect her from her parents' irresponsibility, and from the feeling that she simply does not deserve to be safe. Little does she know, as she finally strikes out on her own, that her parents' biggest betrayal has yet to be revealed...

Firefly Lane

Firefly Lane PDF Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429927844
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . now a #1 Netflix series! In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship—jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you—and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.

Nine Years Under

Nine Years Under PDF Author: Sheri Booker
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592407625
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
A dazzling and darkly comic memoir about coming of age in a black funeral home in Baltimore Sheri Booker was only fifteen when she started working at Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore. She had no idea her summer job would become nine years of immersion into a hidden world. Reeling from the death of her beloved great aunt, Sheri found comfort in the funeral home and soon had the run of the place. With AIDS and gang violence threatening to wipe out a generation of black men, Wylie was never short on business. As families came together to bury one of their own, Booker was privy to their most intimate moments of grief and despair. But along with the sadness, Booker encountered moments of dark humor: brawls between mistresses and widows, and car crashes at McDonald’s with dead bodies in tow. While she never got over her terror of the embalming room, Booker learned to expect the unexpected and to never, ever cry. Nine Years Under offers readers an unbelievable glimpse into an industry in the backdrop of all our lives.

Salvation on Sand Mountain

Salvation on Sand Mountain PDF Author: Dennis Covington
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458766276
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
For Dennis Covington, what began as a journalistic assignment - covering the trial of an Alabama preacher convicted of attempting to murder his wife with poisonous snakes - would evolve into a headlong plunge into a bizarre, mysterious, and ultimately irresistible world of unshakable faith: the world of holiness snake handling, where people drink strychnine, speak in tongues, lay hands on the sick, and, some claim, raise the dead. Set in the heart of Appalachia, Salvation on Sand Mountain is Covington's unsurpassed and chillingly captivating exploration of the nature, power, and extremity of faith - an exploration that gradually turns inward, until Covington finds himself taking up the snakes. University.

Confessions of a Funeral Director

Confessions of a Funeral Director PDF Author: Caleb Wilde
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062465260
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
“Wise, vulnerable, and surprisingly relatable . . . funny in all the right places and enormously helpful throughout. It will change how you think about death.” —Rachel Held Evans, New York Times–bestselling author of Searching for Sunday We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed the family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial; the nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away; the funeral that united a conflicted community. Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde’s candid memoir offers an intimate look into the business of death and a new perspective on living and dying. “Open[s] up conversations about life’s ultimate concerns.” —The Washington Post “As a look behind the closed doors of the death industry, as well as a candid exploration of Wilde’s own faith journey, this book is fascinating and compelling.” —National Catholic Reporter “[A] stunner of a debut.” —Rachel Held Evans, author of Inspired

Dancing at the Pity Party

Dancing at the Pity Party PDF Author: Tyler Feder
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525553037
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This acclaimed graphic memoir that Kirkus calls “cathartic and uplifting” is the tale of losing a parent and what it feels like to grieve and to move forward. “I can’t recommend this kind, funny, and poignant memoir enough. It’s an intimate, life-affirming story of resilience that feels like a good friend.” —Mari Andrew, author of Am I There Yet? Tyler Feder had just white-knuckled her way through her first year of college when her super cool mom was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now, with a decade of grief and nervous laughter under her belt, Tyler shares the story of that gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, extremely awkward time in her life—from her mom’s first oncology appointment to her funeral through the beginning of facing reality as a motherless daughter. She shares the sting of loss that never goes away, the uncomfortable post-death firsts, and the deep-down, hard-to-talk-about feelings of the grieving process. Dancing at the Pity Party is a frank and refreshingly funny look at what it’s like to grieve—for anyone struggling with loss who just wants someone to get it.

The Complete Works of Mark Twain: Novels, Short Stories, Memoirs, Travel Books & More (Illustrated)

The Complete Works of Mark Twain: Novels, Short Stories, Memoirs, Travel Books & More (Illustrated) PDF Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 7928

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Book Description
The Complete Works of Mark Twain: Novels, Short Stories, Memoirs, Travel Books & More (Illustrated) is a comprehensive collection of the iconic author's most famous works. Mark Twain's literary style is characterized by wit, humor, and a keen observation of human nature. This collection includes classics such as 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,' 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,' and 'The Prince and the Pauper,' showcasing Twain's ability to capture the spirit of his time. With its rich storytelling and unforgettable characters, this book is a testament to Twain's enduring legacy in American literature. Mark Twain, born Samuel Clemens, was a renowned American author and humorist known for his sharp wit and social commentary. Twain's personal experiences, including his time as a Mississippi riverboat pilot, greatly influenced his writing and shaped his distinctive storytelling voice. His works continue to resonate with readers of all ages and backgrounds, making him a beloved figure in literary history. I highly recommend The Complete Works of Mark Twain to readers who appreciate classic literature and timeless storytelling. Twain's works offer a unique glimpse into 19th-century America while addressing universal themes that remain relevant today. Whether you are a longtime fan of Twain or new to his writing, this collection is sure to captivate and entertain.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Let's Pretend This Never Happened PDF Author: Jenny Lawson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101573082
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
The #1 New York Times bestselling (mostly true) memoir from the hilarious author of Furiously Happy. “Gaspingly funny and wonderfully inappropriate.”—O, The Oprah Magazine When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it. In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing, yet wonderful moments of our lives. Readers Guide Inside

Looking Back

Looking Back PDF Author: Merrick Abner Richardson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Frontier and pioneer life
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description