* FYI: Clawdia died this afternoon, shortly after 3:30 pm.
This book builds vocabulary by presenting the fascinating histories behind those words we need for more effective communication and comprehension.
Have you had a kindness shown?Pass it on;'Twas not given for thee alone,Pass it on;Let it travel down the years,Let it wipe another's tears,'Till in Heaven the deed appears . . .Pass it on.~~~ by Henry Burton
In this moving and compassionate classic, 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.
Dave Isay selects the most memorable stories from StoryCorps' collection, creating a moving portrait of American life. The voices here connect us to real people and their lives — to their experiences of profound joy, sadness, courage, and despair, to good times and hard times, to good deeds and misdeeds. To read this book is to be reminded of how rich and varied the American storybook truly is, how resistant to easy categorization or stereotype. We are our history, individually and collectively, and this book reminds us of this powerful truth.
"I think I died just after midnight. Mother came for me, but said, 'Not yet,' and I woke up and was back in my bed, alive. When she came and seemed to be looking for me, I said, 'I'm here on this chair and . . .' Then I searched for the other word that I needed — ottoman — which was where my feet were resting. Mother looked at me, said those two words 'Not yet,' and faded away."
"School: Are you still friends with anyone from that time in your life?"We heard details at a meeting, and an old school friend had just sent me a letter with this old B/W photo of the two of us. (B/W is an abbreviation referring to a photograph in shades of black and white as opposed to a color photograph.) That's Shirley on the left and me on the right in the 1950s.
The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest ~ by Timothy Egan, 1990, history/nature, 255 pagesAll summer long Grandpa remains in the basement, two pounds of cremated ash in a plain cardboard cylinder. I can't get used to the idea of this powder being the guy who taught me how to land brook trout with a hand-tied fly . . . He had smoked himself to death . . . Fifty years of two packs a day, that's what did it. Finally, the emphysema literally asphyxiated him. My job is to bury him. Something appropriate, my Granny says, handing me the cylinder after the funeral. "Just throw him off the ferry or dump him into the Yakima River," she says "Whatever you think is best."
Jeffers is concerned with a search for the key to the agonizing contrast of nature's splendor and the corruption of humans. He is disappointed (and sometimes enraged) by the fact that humans will do anything, and he is determined to show the magnificence of the world's wild alternatives to corruption, with the rugged Monterey coast in California providing the setting for his vivid descriptions of natural wonders.
Plath burst into literature with this startling book of poems. In such classics as "The Beekeeper's Daughter," "The Disquieting Muses," "I Want, I Want," and "Full Fathom Five," she writes about sows and skeletons, fathers and suicides, about the noisy imperatives of life and the chilly hunger for death.
Eight years before Denny Colbert was born, his father was involved in a tragic accident that killed 22 children. Now Denny is 16, and all he wants is to be like other kids his age. But he isn't allowed to answer the telephone or have a driver's license, and his family is constantly moving from town to town — all because people can't forget what happened long ago. When Denny defies his parents one afternoon and answers the telephone, he finds himself drawn into a plot for revenge which may prove deadly.
A man visits a psychiatrist a number of times to see if the doctor can dispel his unstable feelings. Unfortunately he is not a properly cooperative patient and he ends by putting himself in the doctor's position and worrying about him (the doctor) rather than himself.
Kirk Donner couldn't believe what he saw in the painting hanging on a New York art gallery wall. Painted by a little-known 17th century artist, the canvas showed Jesus surrounded by a mocking crowd after Pontius Pilate had sentenced him to death. Glancing at the angry mob, Kirk saw his own face in its midst. And everyone else who looked at the painting saw his own likeness there, too.Intrigues by the painting's magical powers, Kirk journeyed to the small German village where the artist had lived to find out all he could about its history. There he met another American — a beautiful girl who had come to review the village's famed Passion Play. Someone commented online that the protagonist is agnostic and his beliefs don't change, but his sense of something powerful outside himself does, adding that "the way he figures out he's met the girl he's supposed to marry is worth the read alone."
This volume contains works from many media. Several eras and cultures are represented. There are examples of fiction, of prose and poetry — and of pictures. The book examines the many aspects of success, in order to help individuals in their search for meaning and attitude toward that single thing.
Cynthia Rahn: I lived very far out in the country, and I had just started kindergarten with a lot of kids from town that I didn't know. We had an assignment to bring in either a toy or a stuffed animal or something you found in your barn so that we could create a barnyard diorama. I was a little shy and insecure because I knew I was from out in the country and probably looked poor to everybody else, and certainly everybody else looked rich to me. So I felt a little intimidated.
In this moving and compassionate classic, 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.
This National Book Award Winner and national bestseller addresses issues in end-of-life care and includes an afterword that discusses how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones. Each of us will die in a way that is different from anyone else's death. Behind each death is a story. Sherwin B. Nuland (1930-2014) was a surgeon and a teacher of medicine. In this book, he gave us portraits of the experience of dying that makes clear the choices we can make to allow us our own death.
