Looking into Death’s Face as a Friend

Deathing: An Intelligent Alternative for the Final Moments of Life by Anya Foos-Graber. Written in 1984 when the conscious birth movement was gaining ground along with the conscious death movement, Anya Foos-Graber provides us with a vivid case study combined with a manual for preparing for our own death or being a loving and skillful companion for someone facing their death.

Among other books you might enjoy reading to amplify her essentialized manual, I’d suggest Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.  Foos-Graber’s book, written before the publication of his, was not able to cite this title in its biliography.

Deathing is a useful book for changing cultural attitudes and metaphors of facing death more direcly with less fear and more hope.