The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying »

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.

On Life and Living

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D., is the woman who has transformed the way the world thinks about death and dying. Beginning with the groundbreaking publication of the classic psychological study On Death and Dying and continuing through her many books and her years working with terminally ill children, AIDS patients, and the elderly, Kübler-Ross has brought comfort and understanding to millions coping with their own deaths or the deaths of loved ones. Now, at age seventy-one facing her own death, this world-renowned healer tells the story of her extraordinary life. Having taught the world how to die well, she now offers a lesson on how to live well. Her story is an adventure of the heart — powerful, controversial, inspirational — a fitting legacy of a powerful life.

Publishers Weekly

In 1969's On Death and Dying, psychiatrist Kbler-Ross was the first to sytematically ask dying patients what it was like to be terminally ill, and to identify what came to be known worldwide as "near-death experiences." Until then, Kbler-Ross contends, the medical establishment had not only ignored the subject of death, but had actively avoided it due to its implication of medical failure. Now, after ten books that empathetically tracked our culture's ways of dealing with sickness, death and spirituality, Kbler-Ross offers her own story in what she says will be her final book. The firstborn of triplet girls, she describes a childhood surrounded by mountains, wildflowers and a loving family in Switzerland. She shares stories of her marriage and motherhood, her deep desire to help others and to restore humanity to medicine, her explorations of out-of-body experiences and encounters with spirit guides, and the extreme resistance to her never-realized plan of caring for AIDS babies on her Virginia farm. Kbler-Ross seems to have lived several lifetimes in one, but a series of strokes has slowed her down to the point of declaring, "Death is a wonderful and positive experience, but the process of dying, when it is prolonged like mine, is a nightmare." She says the one question that everyone must answer at the end of life is, "What have you done to help?" Having faced universal questions of life and death, having offered comfort to countless others, Kbler-Ross now awaitsto use her own metaphorher transformation from cocoon to butterfly. (June)

Contents

1. There Are No Accidents

Part I — "The Mouse"

2. The Cocoon

3. A Dying Angel

4. My Black Bunny

5. Faith, Hope and Love

6. My Own Lab Coat

7. My Promise

8. A Sense of Purpose

9. Blessed Soil

10. Butterflies

Part II — "The Bear"

11. Home for Dinner

12. Medical School

13. Good Medicine

14. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D.

15. Manhattan State Hospital

16. Living Until Death

17. My First Lecture

18. Motherhood

19. On Death and Dying

20. Heart and Soul

21. My Mother

22. The Purpose of Life

23. Fame

24. Mrs. Schwartz

25. Afterlife

Part III — "The Buffalo"

26. Jeffy

27. Life After Death

28. Proof

29. Channeling the Other Side

30. Death Does Not Exist

31. My Cosmic Consciousness

32. The Final Home

33. AIDS

34. Healing Waters

Part IV — "The Eagle"

35. Service Rendered

36. The Country Doctor

37. Graduation

38. Manny's Signal

39. The Butterfly

40. On Life and Living