Tom Larkin, an impossibly famous rock icon, dies tragically at the hands of a deranged fan--or so the world believes. In reality, Tom narrowly escapes and recuperates in a secret hospital. His loving but imperious wife Katrinka becomes convinced that it's safer for everyone if he stays dead. Reluctantly, Tom agrees to live out his days in obscurity until an old enemy reveals that his life is still in danger.
Inspired by the website that the New York Times hailed as "redefining mourning," this book is a fresh and irreverent examination into navigating grief and resilience in the age of social media, offering comfort and community for coping with the mess of loss through candid original essays from a variety of voices, accompanied by gorgeous two-color illustrations and wry infographics. At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it’s clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map. Let’s face it: most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We’re awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit. Enter Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner, who can help us do better. Each having lost parents as young adults, they co-founded Modern Loss, responding to a need to change the dialogue around the messy experience of grief. Now, in this wise and often funny book, they offer the insights of the Modern Loss community to help us cry, laugh, grieve, identify, and—above all—empathize. Soffer and Birkner, along with forty guest contributors including Lucy Kalanithi, singer Amanda Palmer, and CNN’s Brian Stelter, reveal their own stories on a wide range of topics including triggers, sex, secrets, and inheritance. Accompanied by beautiful hand-drawn illustrations and witty "how to" cartoons, each contribution provides a unique perspective on loss as well as a remarkable life-affirming message. Brutally honest and inspiring, Modern Loss invites us to talk intimately and humorously about grief, helping us confront the humanity (and mortality) we all share. Beginners welcome.
Chris Gerolmo's Death for Beginners, in the words of Bruce Feirstein, is "a heart-wrenching, brutally honest, and ultimately cathartic book about losing his wife to cancer... The book makes you stop and think, and even laugh, about the things we take for granted in our lives, and in the lives and departures of our loved ones. From A to Z, it's a soul-searching chronicle of a death foretold that offers hope and sustenance, with a remarkable absence of empty platitudes, for all of us."
Playing off the last chapter of her previous book, The Courage to Grow Old, well-beloved author Barbara Crafton looks at the world around us: what do we know about creation? What gift is there for us in the "also life" of stars and other organic and non-organic forms of existence? How might that shape the way we see our existence and the God who breathed that life into us? And what might life after death be like?
Discover what God says about death, dying, and life after death. Many people are intrigued by what lies beyond death's door, but we live in an age bombarded with many conflicting views. How can we be sure of what is true? In this eye-opening study you’ll examine the Bible’s answers about death and what comes next. As you confront the inevitability of death in the context of the promise of heaven and the reality of hell, you will be challenged to examine your heart—and in doing so, find that, in grabbing hold of the hope of eternal life, the sting of death is replaced with peace. 40 minutes a week could change your life! The 40-Minute Bible Studies series from the teaching team at Precepts Ministries International tackles the topics that matter to you. These inductive study guides, designed to be completed in just six 40-minutes lessons with no homework required, help you discover for yourself what God says and how it applies to your life today. With the leader’s note and Bible passages included right in the book, each self-contained study is a powerful resource for personal growth and small-group discussion.
A renowned psychic and spiritual healer with clients all over the world, Mary T. Browne had her first clairvoyant experience at the age of seven. For more than thirty years since then, her visions of the other side and her communication with her teachers, both in spirit and on the earth plane, have helped to form not just her understanding of death, but her philosophy of life. In this fascinating, inspiring book, Mary T. puts our lives into a much broader context than most of us have ever imagined. LIFE AFTER DEATH describes in detail exactly where we go when we die. Mary T.'s psychic connection to the spirit world and her ability to receive messages from those who have made the transition will inspire us to see death not as an ending, but as a new beginning. Mary T. shows us that the spirit world is a place of harmony. It is a realm of beauty, light, art, music, literature, and friendship. We do love beyond the grave, and we will be reunited with our loved ones in the spirit world. The touching stories of those reunions will help ease the fear of leaving the physical world. Mary T. takes the mystery out of death, and leaves us with clear examples of the miraculous journey that lies ahead of us.
Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances -- in their house, on the roadway, in the market. Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. When he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, independent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly, he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable life together. But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy's unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and find some peace. Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, (turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trails of life) that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye. A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler's humour, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.
"Soul Afterlife - Beyond the Near-Death Experience" is an unorthodox examination of death, soul life and the process of a plausable reincarnation. By traveling outside the restrictions of traditional convictions, near-death experiences start to take on the appearance of walking along the parameter of an extremely complex afterlife. Beyond our ego defined picture of what occurs after we take our last breath lies somethin extraordinary and magically powerful