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Parting Ways explores the emergence of new end-of-life rituals in America that celebrate the dying and reinvent the roles of family and community at the deathbed. Denise Carson contrasts her father’s passing in the 1980s, governed by the structures of institutionalized death, with her mother’s death some two decades later. Carson’s moving account of her mother’s dying at home vividly portrays a ceremonial farewell known as a living wake, showing how it closed the gap between social and biological death while opening the door for family and friends to reminisce with her mother. Carson also investigates a variety of solutions--living funerals, oral ethical wills, and home funerals--that revise the impending death scenario. Integrating the profoundly personal with the objectively historical, Parting Ways calls for an “end of life revolution” to change the way of death in America.
Price: $34.95
Pages: 328
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
10 April 2011
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780520268739
Format: Paperback
This thoughtful, unique, moving, and educational book deserves a wide audience. . . . Highly recommended.”
Denise Carson is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and a columnist at the Orange County Register, where she tells stories of how people celebrate the end of life.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Introduction
PART I END-OF-LIFE CELEBRATIONS AND PRE-DEATH RITUALS
1. Her Choice: Two Paths Leading to the Same Destination
2. Living Funeral: Celebrating the End of Life
3. Her Life Review: Reliving the Past in the Present
4. Legacy of Memories: Telling Life Stories and Last Wishes
5. Her Season of Lasts: Traditional, Seasonal, Communal Rituals
6. Oral Ethical Will: Video Recording Valuable Last Words
7. Her Living Wake: Reminiscing and Farewell Party
8. Vigil: Holding Hands at the Eleventh Hour
PART II POST- DEATH AND MEMORIALIZING RITUALS
9. Her Twenty-First-Century Memorial Service, His Twentieth- Century Funeral
10. Home Funeral: Eco- Friendly Way Out
11. Holistic Approach: Design- It- Yourself Funeral and Cremation Witnessing
12. The Living Unveiling: Technology Innovates Memorializing
13. Her Truth: Finding Life after Death
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Introduction
PART I END-OF-LIFE CELEBRATIONS AND PRE-DEATH RITUALS
1. Her Choice: Two Paths Leading to the Same Destination
2. Living Funeral: Celebrating the End of Life
3. Her Life Review: Reliving the Past in the Present
4. Legacy of Memories: Telling Life Stories and Last Wishes
5. Her Season of Lasts: Traditional, Seasonal, Communal Rituals
6. Oral Ethical Will: Video Recording Valuable Last Words
7. Her Living Wake: Reminiscing and Farewell Party
8. Vigil: Holding Hands at the Eleventh Hour
PART II POST- DEATH AND MEMORIALIZING RITUALS
9. Her Twenty-First-Century Memorial Service, His Twentieth- Century Funeral
10. Home Funeral: Eco- Friendly Way Out
11. Holistic Approach: Design- It- Yourself Funeral and Cremation Witnessing
12. The Living Unveiling: Technology Innovates Memorializing
13. Her Truth: Finding Life after Death
Notes
Bibliography