Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Co Author: Maggie Callanan | Language: English | ISBN:
B005UDIC3E | Format: PDF
Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Co 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.
- File Size: 1111 KB
- Print Length: 258 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0553378767
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (February 14, 2012)
- Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
- Language: English
- ASIN: B005UDIC3E
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,380 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Sociology > Death - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Death & Grief - #15
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Death
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Sociology > Death - #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Death & Grief - #15
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Death
....read this book!
Over the past few years, when faced with the information that someone I'd known was dying, I did - nothing. Retreating, I was terrified of my own mortality and of what I might do if I were around someone who was dying. Would I say the wrong thing or nothing at all? Would I cry, or do something to inadvertently hurt them? What is dying like? This book is great as a comforting instruction manual on what happens, what to do, and what not to do.
It begins with information about what happens to the body when it is in the process of dying, then moves into experiences the authors have had in dealing with people who are dying, or whose loved ones are dying. They have helpful information throughout the book for those, like me, who were unsure about what to say or do.
They include individual stories about messages people send when they are approaching death and how not to miss them; seeing people who have already died and what that may mean; symbolic dreams and how to let the dreamer find the meaning; choosing a time to die (not by suicide); waiting for a person to arrive or an event to happen.
Family and friends often ignore this precious information. It seems illogical, far out, too much like stories about abduction by aliens. We brush them off as hallucinations, caused by denial or possibly drug-induced.
When I first heard volunteers, nurses and others who work in hospice tell stories of people who have similar Nearing Death Experiences (not to be confused with "Near Death Experiences"), I was dubious. However, in my readings and hospice volunteer work, I find that these stories are universal, timeless and not as new age-y as I'd thought.
Final Gifts is the most practical, empowering book I've ever read.
What I appreciate most about the book is that it is empowering and comforting to both the loved ones of the dying and the dying themselves. In fact, I own 3 copies of Final Gifts and I loan them out to friends, family and acquaintances when I hear they have a loved one who is dying. To a person, they have returned the book to me and said it dramatically changed their lives and their perspective on how to approach their loved one and his/her death.
The book is about the gifts that the dying person has to pass on to the survivors (and vice versa), even when it may seem the dying person is incoherent or drugged beyond understanding (this is often when he/she needs to communicate most). In a nutshell, Final Gifts encourages caretakers and visitors to pay attention to the communications of the dying, to learn the communication methods of the dying (they often use symbols to communicate--the authors explain how to decipher these), and to acknowledge that the dying need those around him/her to be honest about the situation and encourage openness in their communication.
The book is also very comforting in its description of numerous case studies observed by the two authors. They explain what the dying experience (it's actually very positive) and how to let go.
My mom was the primary caretaker of her mother when she was dying in 1984. My mom read this book 15 years after her mother's death, and even after so much time, my mom found comfort in the answers and explanations she discovered in the book. As she read each chapter, my mom would comment to me that she found many connections between her experience with her mother and what she learned in the book...
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