Resources
Books on the Subject of Death and Dying
Recent Highly Rated Books:
- Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande
- When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
- Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide, Michael Kinsley
Older Books:
- On Death and Dying, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and Ira Byock
Useful Websites
Tools to Discuss Your Wishes for End of Life Care with your Loved Ones
- The Conversation Project: This is a terrific site giving you the tools to discuss end-of-life care for you with your family and loved ones.
Burial
Cremation
Special Needs Trusts
Living with Cancer
Palliative Care
Palliative care is specialized medical care for anyone, at any age, with a serious illness. The focus in on providing relief from the pain and stress of a serious illness. These specialists work with your doctors and others to make sure that you are getting the help you need to improve the quality of your life.
Legacy
Books
- Letters to My Grandchild: Write Now. Read Later. Treasure Forever., Lea Redmond
- Memories for My Grandchild: A Keepsake to Remember, Suzanne Zenkel
Preserving Collections: Art, important letters, film, and other art worthy of preservation
Photo Books
Photo Books are a great way to preserve memories and pictures of multiple generations. Too often, when a parent dies, pictures are in a drawer, and one person takes them “to share or organize” and that is the last they are seen. Today, digital photos are the best way to share photos with every member of a family, so they are not lost forever, and a photo book tells the whole story.
- Video: How To Create a Shutterfly Photo Book (There are many more of these “How Tos” on YouTube and various photo sites)
- Scanning Prints to Digitize: If you have a lot of old prints, there are many services that will scan prints for you to digitize them for photo books; Top 10 Photo Scanning Services of 2016 Reviews
Video Memories For The Next Generations
My siblings and I captured memories of our parents and grandparents, our childhood and family vacations, and so much more on some very special DVDs. We had the help of a professional film crew of 18, including cameramen, editors, a director, make-up, wardrobe, sound and on and on. They were terrific, and we all felt this was worth every penny. If you would like to take a look, you can find our first of three DVDs here.
Acknowledgement Note Cards
Typically a family will receive many beautiful notes from friends of the deceased or the family. They will also receive gifts of food, flowers, and offers of prayers, among other things.
The family often shares the responsibility to acknowledge these offers of kindness and support through the use of pre-printed acknowledgement cards. There are a wide variety of such notes, and several websites are shown below, most of which can be customized. It makes the process go more smoothly, and not become a major burden, when everyone chips in to help at that time when the family is all together. They will split up who write to whom, and then make sure that they all get sent. Here are a few: