Death: The Final Stage of Growth »

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross earned a place as the best-loved and most-respected authority on the subjects of death and dying. Through her many books, as well as her years working with terminally ill children, AIDS patients, and the elderly, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross brought comfort and understanding to millions coping with their own deaths or the death of a loved one. Dr. Kübler-Ross, whose books have been translated into twenty-seven languages, passed away in 2004 at the age of seventy-eight. Before her death, she and David Kessler completed work on their second collaboration, On Grief and Grieving.

Ours is a death-denying society. But death is inevitable, and we must face the question of how to deal with it. Coming to terms with our own finiteness helps us discover life's true meaning.

Why do we treat death as a taboo? What are the sources of our fears? How do we express our grief, and how do we accept the death of a person close to us? How can we prepare for our own death?

Drawing on our own and other cultures' views of death and dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross provides some illuminating answers to these and other questions. She offers a spectrum of viewpoints, including those of ministers, rabbis, doctors, nurses, and sociologists, and the personal accounts of those near death and of their survivors.

Once we come to terms with death as a part of human development, the author shows, death can provide us with a key to the meaning of human existence.

Contents

Foreword

Preface:

A Journey into the Realm of Death and Growth

1

Introduction

2

Why Is It So Hard to Die?

THE ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT OF DYING

Hans O. Mauksch

DEATH IN THE FIRST PERSON

Anonymous

3

Death Through Some Other Windows

DYING AMONG ALASKAN INDIANS: A MATTER OF CHOICE

Murray L. Trelease

THE JEWISH VIEW OF DEATH: GUIDELINES FOR DYING

Zachary I. Heller

THE JEWISH VIEW OF DEATH: GUIDELINES FOR MOURNING

Audrey Gordon

THE DEATH THAT ENDS DEATH IN HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM

J. Bruce Long

4

Dying Is Easy, But Living Is Hard

LIVING UNTIL DEATH: A PROGRAM OF SERVICE AND RESEARCH FOR THE TERMINALLY ILL

Raymond G. Carey

FUNERALS: A TIME FOR GRIEF AND GROWTH

Roy Nichols and lane Nichols

A MOTHER MOURNS AND GROWS

Edith Mize

ONE WOMAN'S DEATH — A VICTORY AND A TRIUMPH

Dorothy Pitkin

5

Death and Growth: Unlikely Partners?

DEATH AS PART OF MY OWN PERSONAL LIFE

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

LETTER TO ELISABETH: DEDICATED TO CAROL

Bal Mount

LOUIE

Shirley Holzer Jeffrey

FOR MY WIFE WANDA: LOVE WILL NEVER GO AWAY

Orville Kelly

6

Death: The Final Stage of Growth

DYING AS THE LAST STAGE OF GROWTH

Mwalimu Imara

Omego

Resources

Index