Accepting Death, Embracing Life

"""I loved this book. It's practical, honest, and genuine. What I appreciated most was the vulnerable and courageous telling of stories and lessons learned. At times, I felt like I was walking beside Patricia on a deep and transformative journey where meaning in life was rooted in meaning in dying. As a physician, it was challenging to read at times because our medical system did not shine well, but this too was honest and accurate and important to address. If I had to sum up my view of the book in one sentence, it would be: this book will take you on a journey to the heart where openly confronting death and loss offer healing and hope."" -Tim Short, MD, HMDC, FAAFP, FAAHPM. Chief Medical Officer at Hospice of the Piedmont, Charlottesville, Virginia. ""As a Marriage and Family Therapist, specializing in bereavement counseling, I discovered this book, Accepting Death, Embracing Life: How Death Teaches Us to Live, to be an invaluable resource for clients grieving the loss of a loved one. Those who are suffering from anticipatory grief as they care for their loved one through the dying process, find in this book a dynamic ""road map"" in which to be guided by reading Patricia's parallel experiences of the losses in her family. My clients report feeling deeply supported by the book and at the same time more open to our therapeutic healing work. Accepting Death, Embracing Life is unique in grief literature which is often more theoretically based. This book is authentically experiential as well as inclusive of valuable lessons and wisdom learned. I highly recommend this book to anyone facing a loved one's mortality as well as to those with a desire to understand more of their own finite life."" -Michele Barbic, MA, LMFT, Grief Therapist, Campbell, California ""I've never run across a book quite like this. Yes, special books about death and dying have passed my gaze for decades. All of them special in their own right. This one, Accepting Death, Embracing Life: How Death Teaches Us to Live, stands alone. The uniqueness of a special family that deeply loved and supported each other, while at the same time, individual pain, especially that of children, was not allowed - even amidst the death of one family member after another for far too many years - is a story that mirrors that of the human family. Yet there is so much love and joy in this book, and so much honesty, real honesty, the type you seldom see. Patricia confronts all aspects of self, all types of love and denial, of prayer and miracles; and in so doing she gives this book unusual strength. She became a poet and lover of music and dance, then a therapist, later a minister. Her background, almost a ""training course"" in how to help others, enables her to open the doors of the soul to mystical truths few know. A treasure."" -PMH Atwater, L.H.D., researcher of near-death states since 1978, and author of such books as The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences and The Forever Angels: Near-Death Experiences in Childhood and Their Lifelong Impact."