The Good Death

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

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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 Good Death

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

Get Book Here

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.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory PDF Author: Caitlin Doughty
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393245950
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
"Morbid and illuminating" (Entertainment Weekly)—a young mortician goes behind the scenes of her curious profession. Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life’s work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. By turns hilarious, dark, and uplifting, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes reveals how the fear of dying warps our society and "will make you reconsider how our culture treats the dead" (San Francisco Chronicle).

In Search of Gentle Death

In Search of Gentle Death PDF Author: Richard N. Côté
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781929175369
Category : Assisted suicide
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Death is inevitable. But bad deaths-- accompanied by unnecessarily prolonged pain and suffering, often aggravated by immensely costly and frequently futile medical treatments-- can be avoided. This book offers clear and valuable examples of how, through frank communication with caregivers and loved ones and the use of Advance Medical Directives such as living wills, those who are facing the possibility of death in the foreseeable future, and those who help them cope, can greatly minimize or eliminate end-of-life turmoil, family dissension, and pain.

How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies

How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies PDF Author: Therese A. Rando
Publisher: Echo Point Books & Media, LLC
ISBN:
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
Living Life While Navigating the Death of a Loved One If you recently lost a loved one, How to Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies is the lifeline you are seeking. Dr. Therese Rando’s compassionate and comprehensive guide will help you navigate the storm and find your way back to solid ground. Whether dealing with sudden loss or mourning a long-anticipated passing, this book acknowledges that each person’s journey through grief is unique. It equips its readers with the tools to understand and address their grief, communicate with children about death, attend to any unfinished business, and find support and other resources to help them move forward with their lives. Dr. Rando emphasizes the importance of self-care and encourages the acceptance of appropriate help and support from others. She provides practical strategies for managing grief during difficult times like the holidays, for planning funerals, and for creating meaningful personal rituals. First published in the late 1980s, Dr. Rando’s book is an enduring guide to the emotional, practical, and spiritual aspects of loss. With decades of clinical experience and international acclaim, she is a leading expert on the grieving process. While this guide is intended for people who have lost a loved one, it is also a resource for carers, or anyone else, who wish to support someone navigating the path of bereavement. In the face of loss, this book is not just about surviving, but about living—truly and fully.

Grave Words

Grave Words PDF Author: Kenneth V. Iserson
Publisher: Gale Group Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
"Sudden, unexpected death notification stresses everyone involved. Grave Words: Notifying Survivors about Sudden, Unexpected Deaths provides a way to ease the pain a little - for notifier and survivor alike. It explains, step by step, how to relate tragic news to survivors by providing true-life case studies, in-depth information, and protocols tailored to a variety of situations." "Protocols for death notification by physicians, nurses, emergency medical services personnel, chaplains, medical examiners or coroners, and police officers are detailed in the book. Also included are bereavement resources and support groups, a death-notification course outline, police and military in-line-of-duty notification protocols, and airline disaster protocols."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Remember Death

Remember Death PDF Author: Matthew McCullough
Publisher: Crossway
ISBN: 1433560569
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
Life-expectancy worldwide is twice what it was a hundred years ago. And because of modern medicine, many of us don't often see death up close. That makes it easy to live as if death is someone else's problem. It isn't. Ignoring the certainty of death doesn't protect us from feeling its effects throughout the lives we're living now. But this avoidance can hold us back from experiencing the powerful, everyday relevance of Jesus's promises to us. So long as death remains remote and unreal, Jesus's promises will too. But honesty about death brings hope to life. That's the ironic claim at the heart of this book. Cultivating "death-awareness" helps us bring the promises of Jesus from the hazy clouds of some other world into the everyday problems of our world—where they belong.

Narratives of Parental Death, Dying and Bereavement

Narratives of Parental Death, Dying and Bereavement PDF Author: Caroline Pearce
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030708942
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
This collection shows what happens when facing the inevitable and sometimes expected death of a parent, and how such an ordinary part of life as parental death might connect with the children left behind. In many ways, individual deaths are extraordinary and leave a unique legacy – a kind of haunting. The authors' accounts seek to make sense of death through witnessing its enactment and recording its detail. All the authors are experienced researchers in the field of death studies, and their collective expertise encompasses ethnography, psychology, sociology and anthropology. The individual descriptions of death and grief capture the everyday practicalities of managing death and dying, including, for example, the difficulties of caring responsibilities and the realities of dealing with strained family relationships. These accounts show the raw detail of death; they are deeply personal observations framed within critical theories. As established scholars and practitioners that have researched and worked in end-of-life and bereavement care, the authors in this anthology offer a unique perspective on how identity is shaped by a close bereavement. The book employs a strong editorial narrative that blends memoir with theoretical engagement, and will be of interest to death studies scholars, as well as practitioners involved in end-of-life care and bereavement care and anyone who has experienced the death of a parent.

This Too Shall Pass

This Too Shall Pass PDF Author: Julia Samuel
Publisher: Anchor Canada
ISBN: 0385695985
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A leading therapist shares memorable patient stories to explore the key crises in life and what we can learn from them. We live in a culture of limitless choice—and life is now more complex than ever. In This Too Shall Pass, acclaimed psychotherapist Julia Samuel draws on hours of conversations with her patients to show how we can learn to adapt and thrive during our most difficult and transformative experiences. Illuminated by the latest social and psychological research, this book unflinchingly deals with the hard times in family, love, work, health and identity—from a woman deciding whether to leave her husband for a younger lover, to a father handling a serious medical diagnosis; and from a new mother struggling with the decision to return to work, to a young man dealing with the aftermath of coming out, to a woman starting again after losing her job. These powerful, unforgettable and deeply intimate stories about everyday people will inform our understanding of our own unique response to change and enlighten the way we approach challenges at every stage of life.

What Death Means Now

What Death Means Now PDF Author: Tony Walter
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447337360
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
Although death is universal, how we respond to it--how we ready ourselves for death and how we grieve--depends on when and where we live. New preparations for dying, new kinds of funerals, new ways of handling grief, and new ways to memorialize are continually evolving, and with them come new challenges. Bringing to bear twenty-five years of work on the sociology of death and dying, Tony Walter engages critically with key questions such as: should we talk about death more and plan in advance? How possible is advance planning as more people suffer frailty and dementia? How do physical migration and digital connection affect the irreducibly material process of dying? Is the traditional funeral still relevant? Can burial and cremation be ecological? And how should we grieve: quietly, openly, or even online?

Death and Mortality in Contemporary Philosophy

Death and Mortality in Contemporary Philosophy PDF Author: Bernard N. Schumacher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139493272
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This book contributes to current bioethical debates by providing a critical analysis of the philosophy of human death. Bernard N. Schumacher discusses contemporary philosophical perspectives on death, creating a dialogue between phenomenology, existentialism and analytic philosophy. He also examines the ancient philosophies that have shaped our current ideas about death. His analysis focuses on three fundamental problems: (1) the definition of human death, (2) the knowledge of mortality and of human death as such, and (3) the question of whether death is 'nothing' to us or, on the contrary, whether it can be regarded as an absolute or relative evil. Drawing on scholarship published in four languages and from three distinct currents of thought, this volume represents a comprehensive and systematic study of the philosophy of death, one that provides a provocative basis for discussions of the bioethics of human mortality.