Table of Contents
Honor and Flowers v
Foreword: The Hawk and the Otherworld ix
Overture: Night 1
1 The Ordeal of a Managed Death: What Happens When We Don't Let Dying Change Everything 17
Cobalt and Courtesy: A Few Things to Know about Palliative Medicine 18
The Iatrogenic Nightmare of Palliative Care 32
The Right of Life 42
2 Stealing Meaning from Dying: What It Alt Has Come To 57
Long Life, Quick Death 57
To Die, Not Dying 69
What Is It about Living That Dying Proves? 89
An Angel or an Executioner 107
3 The Tyrant Hope 117
4 The Quality of Life 137
5 Yes, but Not Like This Euthanasia and Suicide 153
6 The Work 171
7 So Who Are the Dying to You? Who Are the Dead? 217
Looking for Home 223
Could I Be from Somewhere? Stories 230
The Bone Yard 244
The Garden 260
8 Dying Facing Home 269
9 What Dying Asks of Us All 283
Everybody Knows? 283
Enough 289
A Love Affair in Reverse 301
The Words to Say It All 319
10 Kids 333
11 Ah, My Friend the Enemy 357
Once I Had a Brother 357
Heart Like a Seed 365
Fail to Live Forever 377
Afterwards: Dawn 381
Bibliography 383
Index 385
The Writer 395