Before Forever After (PDF)

What gets people talking about death in ways that make them feel more powerfully alive?The author's quest for an answer and belief that we need to talk about living and dying inspired an eight-year learning journey. This took her from South Africa's townships to the American mid-West, from a hospital bed in Lusaka to Bellagio on the shores of Lake Como. She spoke to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, US healthcare pioneer Bernie Hammes and Ellen Goodman of Boston's The Conversation Project. She's listened to lobbyists from Canada, Colombia, Japan and many others.In these conversations, dozens of ordinary people shared their extraordinary stories about living with clear intention and making profound choices about their last days. They discussed ritual, bereavement and planning for longevity. As she wrestled with what she heard, Helena realised the markings that death had already left on her own life, and that though death and dying are frightening to contemplate, fear-filled silence is a life-denying state which will only drain us much more deeply.And so she wrote this book, which encourages open discussion around these topics, in order to prompt compelling and empowering conversations about life. The 50 stories contained within Before Forever After all invite the reader to consider important questions. How do you want to live your life? Do you have secrets that might hurt loved ones following your death? What medical intervention do you want at the end of your life? What rituals matter to you?This book and its rich cast of story tellers, while insightful, won't always provide the answers. Instead, the gift that Before Forever After gives the reader is the ability to ask clearer and sharper questions regarding death and dying so that they may shape their own unique paths towards this fierce, fundamental and, above all, inevitable force of life.