They are very sorry, so they decide to say good-bye. In the park, they dig a hole for the bird and cover it with warm sweet-ferns and flowers. Finally, they sing sweet songs to send the little bird on its way.

    After spending months nursing him through his final painful illness, Jo receives a vision of the Virgin Mary, who sends her to Italy to live out her dream of becoming an artist. In doing so, Jo must leave behind her home and her best friend Jack, and risk losing him forever.In Florence, Jo’s intense artistic visions begin to find fruition, but her odyssey is complicated when she meets Chad and Walter, two extraordinary young men. By day, Jo paints–women in a marketplace, the view of the Arno from the Piazzale Michelangelo. At night, both Chad and Walter vie for her attention. As the lives of these three friends become more deeply entwined, the revelation of painful secrets threatens to destroy their delicate balance.It isn’t until Jo returns home that she begins to face up to the legacy of her time in Italy, her very real grief for the grandfather she lost, and the prospect of a future with or without Jack.

    All of his patients die. Yet he has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak of love and grace. Beyond the physical realities of dying are unseen processes that are remarkably life-affirming. These include dreams that are unlike any regular dream. Described as "more real than real," these end-of-life experiences resurrect past relationships, meaningful events and themes of love and forgiveness; they restore life's meaning and mark the transition from distress to comfort and acceptance.Drawing on interviews with over 1,400 patients and more than a decade of quantified data, Dr. Kerr reveals that pre-death dreams and visions are extraordinary occurrences that humanize the dying process. He shares how his patients' stories point to death as not solely about the end of life, but as the final chapter of humanity's transcendence. Kerr's book also illuminates the benefits of these phenomena for the bereaved, who find solace in seeing their loved ones pass with a sense of calm closure.Beautifully written, with astonishing real-life characters and stories, this book is at its heart a celebration of our power to reclaim the dying process as a deeply meaningful one. Death Is But a Dream is an important contribution to our understanding of medicine's and humanity's greatest mystery.

    As a psychologist in a hospital for the terminally ill in Paris, Marie de Hennezel has spent seven years tending to people who are relinquishing their hold on life. She tells the stories of her patients and their families. de Hennezel teaches us how to turn death--our loved ones' or our own--from something lonely and agonizing into a sacred passage. She discusses the importance of an honest reckoning, the value of ritual, the necessity of touch. In imparting these lessons, Intimate Death becomes a guide to living more fully, more intensely, than we had thought possible."Unique...Of all the books I have read about the endings of our lives, this elegiac testimony has taught me the most."--Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., author of How We Die"The quiet, obvious truths [de Hennezel] discovers in her work--these things have a kind of cumulative power."--Washington Post Book World

    Graced with opening words by His Holiness The Dalai Lama, the Penguin Deluxe Edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead is "immaculately rendered in an English both graceful and precise." Translated with the close support of leading contemporary masters and hailed as “a tremendous accomplishment,” this book faithfully presents the insights and intentions of the original work. It includes one of the most detailed and compelling descriptions of the after-death state in world literature, practices that can transform our experience of daily life, guidance on helping those who are dying, and an inspirational perspective on coping with bereavement.

    For centuries, religious establishments constructed decorated ossuaries and charnel houses that stand as masterpieces of art created from human bone. These unique structures have been pushed into the footnotes of history; they were part of a dialogue with death that is now silent.The sites in this specially photographed and brilliantly original study range from the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Palermo, where the living would visit mummified or skeletal remains and lovingly dress them; to the Paris catacombs; to fantastic bone-encrusted creations in Austria, Cambodia, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Italy, Peru, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and elsewhere.Paul Koudounaris photographed more than seventy sites for this book. He analyzes the role of these remarkable memorials within the cultures that created them, as well as the mythology and folklore that developed around them, and skillfully traces a remarkable human endeavor.

    Frannie struggles to make sense of a world that no longer seems safe, a world in which one moment can turn things so thoroughly for the worse. She discovers an elegant wooden box with an inscription: Frances Anne 1000. Inside, Frannie finds one thousand hand-painted and -carved puzzle pieces. She wonders if her father had a premonition of his death and finished her birthday present early. Feeling broken into pieces herself, Frannie slowly puts the puzzle together, bit by bit. But as she works, something remarkable begins to happen: She is catapulted into an ancient foreign landscape, a place suspended in time where she can discover her father as he was B.F.--before Frannie.Delia Ephron makes you laugh and makes you cry--often at the same time!

    "Provocative."--Publishers Weekly.Collection: Religion and Postmodernism Series

     Tyson "Bulldog" Pike has risen through the ranks of the Hawks Motorcycle Club to the level of Vice by doing whatever it took to prove his loyalty. But he's tired of moving drugs and people across the border, and he knows Daddy is corrupt. The only way he's getting out is to find the proof to take down the President. When Danielle Robbins - doe-eyed and innocent - shows up in the Club one morning with Daddy, Bulldog's protective instincts kick in. He offers to take her, and he finds her a job sorting through the metric-ton of paper in Daddy's office. They're looking for specific documents Bulldog can use to contest Daddy's leadership, but there are deadly consequences to Bulldog's actions among his brethren...if he gets caught. And why does his heart keep whispering to him to step outside the circle of celibacy he's painted himself in? As he and Dani work together, Bulldog starts to let down his guard. He starts to trust. He starts to fall in love. Can Dani and Bulldog work together to outsmart Daddy? Or will they lose everything...including their hearts? Fall in love with motorcycle club romance in a whole new way! You'll love the bad boy in this brand new sweet romance from USA Today bestselling author Elana Johnson. It's 65,000 words of action, suspense, and heartwarming, satisfying sweet romance!