A collection of stories, poems, short memoirs, and expository pieces about people's direct experiences with death and dying. From a death professionals like clergy and a mortician to a police officer seeing his first young person killed in a car accident; from a child whose parent commits suicide to a child who experiences one parent murdering the other; from Iraq and Lebanon and Bosnia and the United States these stories are moving and instructive.

A section tells how different religions treat death is helpful in knowing how to relate to friends of various religious identities. Written by people in the U.

S, Middle East, Europe, India, and Australia, and including deaths by illness, war, police or gang violence, suicide, murder, this collection of short pieces will assist the living to better grieve as they experience the mortality of those they love (and their own mortality) whatever way it comes. Authors:Donald Betts, Jr.

Dietrich BonhoefferJulie Ann Baker BrinSharon Hill CranfordJ. Rae Rice-CranfordBrian DaldorphRobert L.

Dean, Jr. Aida Dziho-SatorCharles (Ohiyesa) EastmanGretchen Cassel EickRichard EickEyyup EssenCammie FunstonLinda GebertEdward Ernest GoodeMichael D.

GravesHafizJudy Keller HattebergGeorge HoughTom HullMiriam IwashigeBilly Dee JohnstonMohan KambampatiErin KynaRuth MausNajiyah MaxfieldMark McCormickRonda MillerAmena MohamadSusan MoirJohn Monroe-CasselJim PotterCora PoageMichael PoageRumi Mark ScheelJulie StielstraJanet Jenkins-StottsMaaskelah Kimit ThomasDiane WahtoPhillip Wood. .