Death and Dying
47 Articles & Excerpts
Human Nature and the Heroic
 The Denial of Death
by Ernest Becker, Ph.D.
In times such as ours there is a great pressure to come tip with concepts that help men understand their dilemma; there is an urge toward vital ideas, toward a simplification of needless intellectual complexity.
Survivors of Death
 Death, Grief, and Mourning
by John S. Stephenson, Ph.D.
Through our examination of the grief process, we have been able to develop an understanding of the psychological ramifications of death. In discussing mourning, we examined contemporary American society's response to loss, including its normative
Why Is It So Hard to Die? Part 3
 Death
by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D.
How do I know how sick I am? The physician does not tell me. The nurses do not tell me. I do not really know. This results in finding ways of determining my service eligibility - of locating the size of my service bank account.
Why Is It So Hard to Die? Part 2
Death
by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D.
A death on an obstetric ward, where deaths do not normally occur, is a very different experience. I recall the death of a patient who up to the moment of crisis was expected to have a normal child and a normal delivery.
Why Is It So Hard to Die?
Death
by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D.
Dying is an integral part of life, as natural and predictable as being born. But whereas birth is cause for celebration, death has become a dreaded and unspeakable issue to be avoided by every means possible in our modern society.
The Creators, Part 4
 The Book Of Eulogies
by Phyllis Theroux
Bernardine Connelly is a short-story writer and novelist. My name is Bernardine Connelly, and I was one of John's students during his last semester at Yale. John was a great and a passionate teacher.
The Creators, Part 3
The Book Of Eulogies
by Phyllis Theroux
Now Flannery is dead and I will write her name with honor, with love for the great slashing innocence of that dry-eyed irony that could keep looking the South in the face without bleeding or even sobbing.
The Creators, Part 2
The Book Of Eulogies
by Phyllis Theroux
Again we in the mystery of life are brought face-to-face with the mystery of death. A great man, a great American, is dead before us, and we have met to pay a tribute to his greatness and to his worth. His fame is secure.
The Creators
The Book Of Eulogies
by Phyllis Theroux
If there is any one reason to single out artists as being more necessary to our lives than any others, it is because they provide us with light that cannot be extinguished.
The Collapse
 A Life That Matters
by Mary Schindler, Robert Schindler, Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo, Bobby Schindler
The phone call woke us. I watched my husband, Bob, stumble to the living room of our small condo, a matter of fifteen steps, where he picked up the receiver. It was around 5:30 a.m., February 25, 1990. Calls at that hour could only mean bad news.
Wilderness
 Body Brokers: Inside America's Underground Trade in Human Remains
by Annie Cheney
Joyce Zamazanuk knew that her son was dying. She knew it when the nurses quietly wheeled Jim to a private room on the seventh floor of the hospital in San Diego. His new room had a bed, a metal chair, and an oxygen tube, but little else.
Dobie Gillis Williams
 The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions
by Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ
Brave and fiercely argued new book that tests the moral edge of the debate on capital punishment: What if we're executing innocent men? Two cases in point are Dobie Gillis Williams, an indigent black man with an IQ of 65, and Joseph Roger O'Dell.
Fall
 Living a Year of Kaddish: A Memoir
by Ari L. Goldman
The best-selling author of The Search for God at Harvard continues his spiritual quest in this heartfelt and poignant account of the year he spent saying kaddish for his father. The day after Ari Goldman celebrated his fiftieth birthday his father died of
Part One
 The Rooms of Heaven: A Story of Love, Death, Grief, and the Afterlife
by Mary Allen
I always think of Iowa as a place where strange and magical things happen. Not sleight of hand, card tricks, pull-a-rabbit-out-of-a-hat kind of magic-nothing as literal and obvious as that. What I'm thinking of is vaguer, subtler, harder to pin down
Introduction
 Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith
by Studs Terkel
I've courted death ever since I was six. I was an asthmatic child. With each labored breath, each wheeze, came a toy whistle obbligato. At my bedside, my eldest brother, to comfort me, would whistle back 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles,' in cadence with my
Bearing the Burden: Families in Distress
 The Good Death: The New American Search to Reshape the End of Life
by Marilyn Webb
In 1990, a man whom I will call D. Hale Cobb III died at the age of seventy-two of Alzheimer's disease. Hale had been the chief financial officer of a large corporation, known around New York City for his hilarious sense of humor and his flaming red hair.
What Kaddish Means
 Saying Kaddish: How to Comfort the Dying, Bury the Dead, and Mourn as a Jew
by Anita Diamant
Beyond language, Kaddish is more than the sum of its words. First and foremost, it is an experience of the senses. Like music, there is no understanding Kaddish without hearing and feeling it and letting go of the words.
Curtain Call
 Remember Me When I'm Gone: The Rich and Famous Write Their Own Epitaphs and Obituaries
by Larry King
ALAN ALDA: Here Lies Anonymous-Our Greatest Author. ALAN ALDA is a multi-award-winning actor, writer, and director. He first appeared on film in 1962 in Gone Are the Days. He is perhaps best recognized for his portrayal of wisecracking Army surgeon
Children
 In Lieu of Flowers: A Conversation for the Living
by Nancy Cobb
Curiosity underscores every stage of life. Without it we would be a pretty dull bunch. Yet when it comes to death and grief, even the most curious among us clam up. Carl Jung believed that the negation of life's fulfillment is synonymous
The Call to Connection
 Remembering Mother, Finding Myself: A Journey of Love and Self-Acceptance
by Patricia Commins
The loss of a mother is one of the most traumatic experiences of a woman's life. At any age, a mother's death may leave a daughter with feelings of anger, abandonment and profound sadness that taint the way she views herself, her world
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