When it comes to end-of-life and funeral planning issues, what books do you turn to? I’ve got a bunch of great resources on my bookshelf. Here are a few recommendations for your consideration, with direct links to Amazon:
Jane Brody, weekly personal health columnist for The New York Times, has written prolifically on living a healthy lifestyle. As she so practically notes in the preface to her book, “…even the healthiest of lives eventually must come to an end. In this book I hope to help my readers make that end – for themselves and for those they love – as peaceful and, yes, as enjoyable as it can be.”
The full title pretty much says it all: Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond: A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life. This book is a wonderful resource that covers many planning areas in a warm, thoughtful tone. Throughout, Brody provides great insights on advance directives, funeral planning, care giving, hospice and palliative care, spiritual care, organ and body donations, and so much more. (hardback and Kindle)
The Party of Your Life: Get the Funeral You Want by Planning It Yourself by Erika Dillman is a relentlessly upbeat guide to making your send-off a memorable celebration. The book provides guidance on details for the funeral of the future: a major party! She encourages individuals to write down all the desired elements, from themes and settings to music and readings. With snappy chapter titles and helpful how-to tips, Dillman encourages establishing a funeral box, an official funeral website, and a posse to carry out your funeral plans. (paperback)
GRAVE reflections by funeral directors Gloria and Louis Salazar provides well-grounded information about funeral planning, burial versus cremation, legal issues surrounding death, prearrangement and insurance, and more. In a nice finishing touch, both authors wrote their own obituaries and funeral plans. (Kindle, paperback through www.GraveReflections.com)
While this is not available on Amazon, Creating Your Own Funeral or Memorial Service: A Workbook by Stephanie West Allen is a step-by-step guide to walk you through the process of planning. It’s a complete funeral or memorial service designing workshop in a book. Stephanie founded the October 30 holiday, Create a Great Funeral Day, now going into its 13th year.
Last but not least, there’s my book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die by Gail Rubin. It covers the gamut with a light touch, from death’s door to “what if” questions. A Good Goodbye is a great resource minus the morbidity that won Best of Show in the 2011 New Mexico Book Awards. (paperback and ebook)
Filed under: Book Reviews | Tags: A Good Goodbye, book reviews, funeral planning
June Maffin is an Episcopal/Anglican priest who facilitates workshops/retreats on “healthy” dying and grieving, and other workshops/retreats. She has conducted hundreds of funerals, led countless Grief Support Groups, and counseled many, many people who have been grieving losses of some kind over the years.
She’s also a reviewer for BookPleasures.com, a major book reviewing website. She recently posted a review of A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die. Her review starts out:
Ahhh, it’s true, “the elephant *is* in the room” when the matter of death arises in a conversation. Talking about death is socially awkward. It’s unpleasant. And it’s, well, “not going to happen to me any time in the near future, so why talk about it?”
Why talk about it? None of us knows the date when we will leave this planet, so adopting the scouting motto “Be prepared” is wisdom. But, how to do that?
While there are workshops to prepare for marriage, surgery, retirement; classes on financial responsibility, parenting, healthy relationships, family planning, in today’s society, death is the one life cycle event that is not addressed with intention, let alone depth.
Robert Fulghum’s astute comment … “the religious customs of the Greek Orthodox church so permeate the lives of people that when someone dies, everyone knows what is to be done and how to participate in it” … is in stark contrast to the discussion of death in the western hemisphere.
Research indicates that only 24% of North Americans pre-plan their funeral. That’s 76% who do not plan. Considering that death is inevitable and seldom comes at a convenient time, perhaps it would be wise to do so. This little book offers help to do that very thing.
June faced her own mortality before reading A Good Goodbye. She experienced a diagnosis of mercury poisoning that made her life stop in its tracks.
She experienced the effects of “loss” in a very personal way. Her muscles atrophied, so mobility was severely hampered. Her brain function blocked her ability to read for a year. Illnesses arrived out-of-the-blue because of her weakened immune system. She lost the ability to work outside of the home.
For June, it’s been quite the journey. And yet she has found “blessing upon blessing in the midst of stress upon stress.” She started “Soulistry,” a new enterprise connected with her recently-published book, Soulistry-Artistry of the Soul: Creative Ways to Nurture Your Spirituality. You can read reviews at www.soulistry.com/category/bookreviews.
Thanks for the review, June!
A Good Goodbye is available in print and ebook formats at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com (also for iPad and Sony eReader), as well as signed by the author through AGoodGoodbye.com.
Two book reviews of A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die recently appeared at BookPleasures.com and AllTheSingleGirlfriends.com.
Here is an excerpt from David Menefee’s review at BookPleasures.com:
Loved ones often die unexpectedly, and we have precious little time to prepare a funeral. Most of us feel broadsided by shock and grief, and most of us have no idea what must be done, or how to avoid being taken advantage of by funeral homes. Enter Gail Rubin and A Good Goodbye, Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die.
One look at the book’s Table of Contents and the reader quickly realizes why the book was a finalist for the Foreword Book of the Year award and won the 2011 New Mexico Book Award: chapters named “Over My Dead Body,” “I Got It At Costco,” and “It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To” lead you on a step-by-step resource plan minus the morbidity.
Gail’s book provides the information, inspiration, and tools to plan and implement creative, meaningful, and memorable end-of-life rituals for people (and pets), while taking the fear out of the subject of death.
In these tough economic times, few of us have thousands of dollars readily at hand to provide for a loved one’s last rites, and we are equally unaware that a funeral can be staged cost effectively. In a rush to inter, what we need is a checklist and directives gleaned from up-to-the-minute experience. Gail provides the how-to for the have-nots.
Here’s an excerpt from Mary Schmidt’s review at AllTheSingleGirlfriends.com:
Gail Rubin decided to write a book. And, it wasn’t just any book. It was about death. How to plan for it, deal with it, and – most importantly – think about it. When we met for coffee, she started by saying, “Talking (thinking) about death won’t kill you, just as talking about sex won’t make your pregnant.” Hey, I like this woman. Smart and a touch irreverent!
Gail is also a breast cancer survivor, so she’s been up close and personal with her own mortality. As she notes in the book’s introduction, “Facing the thought of our death can help to better appreciate the reality of life.”
Her book, A Good Goodbye, Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, is a well-written, common sense guide to how to deal with death, yours and others. Even you don’t plan a funeral, its chock-full of information you didn’t even know you needed (like, it’s not illegal to forego embalming, you can rent a casket, shipping/travel logistics, the pros and cons of pre-payment, and much more).
However, it’s all not gloom and despair. Quite the opposite. Gail uses personal anecdotes, quotes and gentle humor to keep you moving right along. The book, as much it can be, is a fun read.
My thanks to both David Menefee and Mary Schmidt for their thumbs up reviews!
Lifestyle editor Irene Seiberling with The Regina Leader Post, based in Regina, Saskatchewan (way up north in Canada), just posted this in her online column, Anything and Everything:
Book Helps People Plan Their Own End-of-Life Event
Just as talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead, says Gail Rubin, author of A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die (Light Tree Press). Rubin uses gentle humour to convey vital information about funeral arrangements that most people don’t learn until faced with a death in the family.
With chapters named Over My Dead Body, I Got It At Costco, and It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To, Rubin has overcome society’s last taboo with a book that’s a great resource minus the morbidity. Rubin’s book provides the information, inspiration and tools to plan and implement creative, meaningful and memorable end-of-life rituals for people and pets while taking the fear out of the subject of death.
Given the fact that only 24% of us pre-plan a funeral and less than 46% tell our family our final wishes – it’s evident we plan our finances, families and retirement, but rarely plan our funerals. Without end-of-life planning, all of life’s other plans can come undone. For this reason an annual event, Create a Great Funeral Day (that occurs every October), was started 12 years ago to remind people of the many benefits of planning their own end-of-life event.
Rubin’s new book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, recently named Best of Show in the 2011 New Mexico Book Awards and winner in the Family Issues category, goes one step further with resources to help reduce family conflict, avoid stress at a time of grief, prepare directives, obituaries, eulogies, ethical wills, cards and thank-you notes, and save readers thousands of dollars in the process. She also presents background on many religious traditions and creative non-religious rituals – especially helpful for interfaith families.
Once a year, like the characters in Harold and Maude, Rubin attends funerals of strangers. During her second annual “30 Funerals in 30 Days Challenge,” she covered each one with a video and wrote about them on The Family Plot Blog. Rubin shares the creative ways people celebrate the lives of those they love and emphasizes that funerals are a life cycle event much like a wedding (and better if planned more than a few days ahead). Rubin sees this as a healthier way of dealing with death – “we know it’s going to happen to all of us some day so let’s make it more comfortable to talk about and plan for.”
For more information, visit: www.agoodgoodbye.com.
A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die by Gail Rubin just won the 2011 Best of Show Award for the New Mexico Book Awards. The book also won in the Family Issues category and was a finalist in four other categories. There were 37 award categories overall.
“It was such a thrill to be recognized as Best of Show in a room full of New Mexico literary luminaries such as Max Evans, Rudolfo Anaya, Anne Hillerman, and so many other great writers,” said Rubin. “My special thanks to my husband David Bleicher for his wonderful cover and interior design of the book.”
A Good Goodbye was also a finalist in the Family & Relationships category of the 2010 national Book of the Year Awards from ForeWord Reviews.
With chapters named Over My Dead Body, I Got It At Costco, and It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To, Rubin has overcome society’s last taboo with a book like no other – a great resource minus the morbidity! Rubin’s book provides the information, inspiration and tools to plan and implement creative, meaningful and memorable end-of-life rituals for people and pets while taking the fear out of the subject of death.
Given the fact that only 24% of us pre-plan a funeral and less than 46% tell our family our final wishes – it’s evident we plan our finances, families and retirement, but rarely plan our funerals. Without end-of-life planning, all of life’s other plans can come undone.
A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die provides resources to help reduce family conflict, avoid stress at a time of grief, prepare directives, obituaries, eulogies, ethical wills, cards and thank-you notes, and save readers thousands of dollars in the process. Rubin also presents background on many religious traditions and creative non-religious rituals – especially helpful for interfaith families.
Rubin, a.k.a. “The Doyenne of Death,” speaks to groups on funeral planning issues using comedy films to lighten the conversation. A Certified Celebrant and event planner, Rubin has been interviewed on television affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, as well as on public radio. To arrange an interview, contact her at 505-265-7215 or email Gail@AGoodGoodbye.com.
The print book is available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and AGoodGoodbye.com. It is also available as an e-book for Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader and iPad.
Exciting news! A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die is a finalist in five categories of the 2011 New Mexico Book Awards.
A Good Goodbye is the only finalist in the Family/Parenting category (does that make it an automatic first place?). In addition, it is a finalist in the Nonfiction, Reference, Religious, and Self-Help categories.
The finalists were announced on September 23, and the winners will be announced at the awards banquet on November 18, 2011. Stay tuned for results on November 19!
A Good Goodbye continues to garner awards. It was a finalist in the Family & Relationships category of the 2010 national Book of the Year Awards from ForeWord Reviews and won first place in SouthWest Writers annual writing contest in the Nonfiction Book category. It also was recognized in New Mexico Press Women’s 2011 Communications Contest when it placed third in the Nonfiction Book-General category.
Chuck Gallagher makes a strong entrance when he speaks. He shuffles up to the stage wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and shackled in handcuffs as he speaks about taking 23 steps into federal prison. “Choices have consequences” is Gallagher’s mantra, and his book, Second Chances: Transforming Adversity into Opportunity, reinforces that message throughout.
His talk at the ICCFA convention earlier this year was billed as “Ethical Choices: The Story of Someone Who Made Some Bad Decisions (And Paid the Price).” Stewart Enterprises was the company in the funeral industry that gave him his second chance after he emerged from 18 months in prison.
Gallagher’s crime: stealing money from his clients to finance a lifestyle that he couldn’t afford. As a trusted CPA, he helped himself a grand total of $254,000. That choice had serious consequences, although it took a while before the law of choices and consequences caught up with him and his life dove into a steep downward spiral.
When he realized the house of cards he had built with the stolen money was about to come tumbling down, he briefly considered suicide. He was out of town teaching a seminar at the time. After hours, he called various psychiatrist offices, hoping to get someone on the phone to talk with.
On the eighth call, he got a live person on the phone. That doctor gave him the message, “You have made a terrible mistake, but you are not a mistake.” That message carried him back home to face up to his choices and the consequences.
To his credit, Gallagher made restitution and paid all the money back. It wasn’t until he admitted everything he had done and realized he had no control over his life that things began to turn around for him. He lost his house, his job, his CPA certification, most of his friends, and eventually his marriage.
His reflections on his experiences and choices make a strong case for dropping a mindset of victimization to achieve empowerment and freedom.
From the book:
If you have less than positive results in your life, then you have made less than “good” choices. You are where you are because of the choices you have made. I can hear naysayers exclaiming that I don’t know what I’m talking about. “I’m a victim,” they often shout. And every time, when they honestly peel back the layers of choices made, they discover that the choices made have a direct effect on where they are today. We all may have been victims as a result of past experiences; however, living in victimization now is a choice. We all have the power to change our lives.
Over and over throughout this book, the message that you cannot avoid the consequences of your actions is repeated, and eventually, it does start to sink into your subconscious. I think of the message as I reach for a sopapilla drizzled with honey, despite my desire to lose a few more pounds before my high school reunion in two weeks. Choices have consequences – the scale is not kind.
From the book:
Consider the rules: (1) we only get one body, (2) we all learn lessons, (3) lessons often appear as mistakes or failures, (4) a lesson is repeated until learned, (5) if we don’t learn the lessons the first time, they are repeated and get harder, (6) we know we’ve learned the lessons when our actions change, (7) we tend to forget the rules when we’ve learned the lessons, and (8) we can remember the rules any time we wish.
At the end of the book, Gallagher offers 23 points to ponder, corresponding with those 23 steps into prison. Each point provides some insights into the nature of choice, change, happiness, pain, transformation, life purpose, self-imprisonment, divine order, spirituality, learning, and understanding.
If you’re looking for valuable life lessons from someone who’s learned the hard way, check out Chuck Gallagher’s book, Second Chances.
You can order the book through his website, www.ChuckGallagher.com or Amazon:
Second Chances: Transforming Adversity into Opportunity
When We Must Say Farewell, a book by funeral director Karl E. Jennings, provides great insights on the power of funeral rituals to heal grief. This slim volume, subtitled, “Rethinking why and how we live by the way we say farewell to those we love,” introduces Acute Loss Management (ALM) to thanatology (death studies).
Jennings, who is also co-founder of the Healing Farewell Centers of America, posits that seven phases of loss create a foundation for a healthy grieving experience. He breaks the ALM process down into overlapping steps that address emotional needs (Hearing, Sharing, Seeing), relational needs (Gathering, Connecting) and spiritual needs (Reflecting, Celebrating). These reactions to a death are most effective when undertaken within the first 10 days after hearing the news.
Jennings writes beautifully of his own experiences with life and death, both as an individual and as a funeral director. He has seen many people who don’t allow themselves to fully grieve and process the loss. They don’t want to deal with death – but on the other side of the coin, they don’t deal well with life.
“Wanting to get this over with is not something that will happen in a one hour meeting, three days of funeral ritual, or one solid month of wishing it was over. You get over it by not going around it, but by going through it; and anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” writes Jennings.
“When we neglect the dead, we are at the same time sending a message to the living that they don’t matter that much either. When we fail to allow ourselves to be confronted with the final reality of life, we also fail to provide a context for the significance of love, forgiveness, joy, peace, pleasure, happiness, sadness, and hatred. Hate in the face of death is exposed for the shallow self-centeredness it often is.”
While I don’t necessarily agree that viewing the body is a requirement for effective emotional healing, Jennings makes many good points about funerals:
- Physical engagement of the dead is the moment when the spirit made flesh becomes the flesh made spirit. One will never last; the other can never be destroyed.
- A funeral should be an instrument of healing for the living, not a veiled attempt by the dead to settle a score.
- Attending a funeral, we convey with our willingness to be with someone in the darkest hours of their lives says, without use of words, they are loved and their loss matters.
- Transience and a lack of community connection results in little if any ritual at the time of death. Those who have deep roots in their community must include them in their healing process.
- When we find meaning in our shared loss, we are comforted because we know we are not alone.
- The painful journey of reflecting on our losses are a path to enlightenment. Losses are actually gifts in disguise that will be with us forever.
- Loss is made meaningful when it affirms life.
When We Must Say Farewell offers important insights about the grieving process and the seven steps toward wholeness. The book provides compelling reasons for holding a ritual to say goodbye to those we love – and for dysfunctional families who have complicated issues with their deceased as well.
Congratulations to Karl Jennings on a valuable contribution to the discussion. You can find out more at www.HealingFarewellCenter.com.
A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die is a finalist in the 2010 Book of the Year Awards Family and Relationships category. The awards were announced by ForeWord Reviews magazine at the American Library Association annual convention in New Orleans.
Americans plan their finances, their families, their retirement, just about everything – except their funerals. That omission can mess up all their other life plans. A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die by Gail Rubin (Light Tree Press, Albuquerque, NM) helps families avoid emotional and financial disaster.
Author Gail Rubin speaks regularly to groups on getting the funeral planning conversation started. Rubin, “The Doyenne of Death,” is an event planner specializing in funerals and memorial services.
“It’s an honor to be a finalist in this prestigious award competition, even without taking home a gold medal,” said Rubin.
As the author of “Matchings, Hatchings and Dispatchings,” an Albuquerque Tribune column on life cycle events, Rubin found the columns on death elicited the greatest reader response, indicating a pressing need for information on the topic. She started The Family Plot Blog (http://thefamilyplot.wordpress.com), a chipper online resource to provide the information, inspiration and tools to pre-plan a healing and meaningful funeral or memorial service.
Rubin’s first book, A Girl’s Pocket Guide to Trouser Trout: Reflections on Dating and Fly-Fishing, won Bronze in the Humor Category of the 2004 Book of the Year Awards.
A Good Goodbye is available through bookstores, online at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and www.AGoodGoodbye.com. E-book versions are available for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony e-readers. Discounts are available for bulk sales and presentations by calling Light Tree Press at 505-265-7215.
The 2010 Book of the Year Awards, conducted by ForeWord Reviews, represents more than 350 publishers. The finalists were selected from 1400 entries in 56 categories.
ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards program was established to help publishers shine an additional spotlight on their best titles and bring increased attention to librarians and booksellers of the literary and graphic achievements of independent publishers and their authors. Award winners are chosen from real librarians and booksellers, who are on the front lines everyday working with patrons and customers.
ForeWord is the only review trade journal devoted exclusively to books from independent houses. Since 1998, ForeWord Reviews has been one of the publishing industry’s most respected print magazine and online review service for readers, booksellers, book buyers, publishing insiders, and librarians. ForeWord is published six times a year and each issue reaches an audience of 26,000 librarians and booksellers.
Funeral Planning for Those Who Don't Plan to Die
A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die is a finalist for the 2010 Book of the Year Awards in the Family and Relationships category.
Americans plan their finances, their families, their retirement, just about everything – except their funerals. That omission can mess up all their other life plans. A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die (Light Tree Press) helps families avoid emotional and financial disaster.
Author Gail Rubin speaks regularly to groups on getting the funeral planning conversation started. Rubin, “The Doyenne of Death,” was a featured speaker at the 2011 Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Nederland, Colorado.
This is Rubin’s second Book of the Year Award. Her first book, A Girl’s Pocket Guide to Trouser Trout: Reflections on Dating and Fly-Fishing, won Bronze in the Humor Category of the 2004 Book of the Year Awards.
As author of The Family Plot Blog (TheFamilyPlot.wordpress.com), Rubin attended and blogged about “30 funerals in 30 days” during November. The project documented the many creative ways today’s funerals are evolving into celebration of life events.
A Good Goodbye retails for $21.95 in bookstores, online at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and www.AGoodGoodbye.com. Discounts are available for bulk sales and presentations by calling Light Tree Press at 505-265-7215.
The 2010 Book of the Year Awards, conducted by ForeWord Reviews, represents more than 350 publishers. The finalists were selected from 1400 entries in 56 categories.
ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards program was established to help publishers shine an additional spotlight on their best titles and bring increased attention to librarians and booksellers of the literary and graphic achievements of independent publishers and their authors. Award winners are chosen from real librarians and booksellers, who are on the front lines everyday working with patrons and customers.
ForeWord is the only review trade journal devoted exclusively to books from independent houses. Since 1998, ForeWord Reviews has been one of the publishing industry’s most respected print magazine and online review service for readers, booksellers, book buyers, publishing insiders, and librarians. ForeWord is published six times a year and each issue reaches an audience of 26,000 librarians and booksellers.
