On Living
Dancing More, Working Less and Other Last Thoughts
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A hospice chaplain's lessons on the meaning of life, from those who are leaving it
What are the top regrets of the dying? That's what Kerry Egan, a hospice chaplain, learned as she listened to her patients on their deathbeds, witnessing what she calls the "spiritual work of dying" - the work of finding or making meaning of one's life, the experiences it contained and the people who have touched it. In this book she recalls the stories she heard - stories of hope and regret, shame and pride, mystery and revelation, and secrets held too long.
This isn't a book about dying - it's a book about living. Each of Egan's patients taught her something; in this moving and beautiful book, she imparts their poignant and profound lessons on how to live a life without regrets.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her sophomore outing, Egan (Fumbling: A Journey of Love, Adventure and Renewal on the Camino de Santiago) masters the art of imparting critical life advice without coming off as preachy a difficult feat. The author, a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School, works as an end-of-life chaplain a profession sometimes belittled by others (a woman at her book club asks her, "You consider this work?"), yet helpful to those who need a healing catharsis in the limited time left to them, such as a mother who bore her son out of wedlock and lied to him about the identity of his father, and a father who blames himself for his four-year-old son's death from meningitis. Egan is no stranger to sorrow herself, having experienced a psychotic break when doctors used ketamine during her emergency C-section, after her epidural anesthesia failed. Most of all, Egan's empathetic tone is a comfort for both the healthy and the dying whom, she opines, are not polar opposites. "People don't somehow transform drastically into something else when they're dying," she says. "They're just doing something you haven't done yet." Egan also counsels that things are never as they appear, that there are layers to every decision, good and bad. As the title suggests, this is not just a book about dying. It's one that will inspire readers to make the most of every day.
