Final Gifts

Final Gifts is a must read for anyone living or working with a dying person or trying to understand the death of a loved one. It sheds invaluable information on the human experience at the end of life...It left me with a very peaceful understanding of the dying process.

This is a wonderful book about end of life events.

A wonderfully enlightening and comforting book helping the loved ones of the terminally ill to understand and cope with the dying process.

A friend lent me this book after she lost her adult son to cancer. When I finally got over my reluctance to read it, I was amazed at how fascinating this collection of personal stories are. Written by two hospice nurses, their patients have taught them much about the many different ways that dying people want to communicate. The important lesson for me is that they want to talk about death as they experience what the authors call "nearing death awareness." Putting the dying person off with, "Oh, you'll outlive me," leaves them lonely and exerting effort to protect their caregivers' feelings. They need to talk, and we need to recognize their sometimes indirect ways of bringing up the subject. And we must never tell them that they are not visiting with loved ones who have already passed away. Two of the patients recognized loved ones visiting them "from the other side" who had died, unbeknownst to them. They had not been told for fear of upsetting them. The patient's response was, "What are you doing here?" This book has reassured me that death can be kind and serene, if the surrounding family and friends are loving and supportive.