The best grief books and the best books about mourning, loss and death recommended by Oxford academic and memoirist Sophie Ratcliffe.

Veteran journalist and author of Opening Heaven's Door: Investigating Stories of Life, Death, and What Comes After explains what she discovered after researching how people cross over.

A death doula is a person trained to help the dying one and their family with the death process. In this article we explain the role of end-of-life doulas.

OUR bodies keep trying to patch us together after death, scientists have discovered. Cells continue to work after organs shut down, similarly to the super-hero style regeneration we see in Hollywoo…

Delirium and terminal restlessness are distressing symptoms that may occur in dying patients. Find out what they are and how to spot and manage them.

According to Frank Ostaseski, offering care to someone who’s dying is like meditation: there’s no one right way, but practice helps, and so do basic guidelines.

Learn the 10 Signs of Death approaching. Also find Practical Tips for making your loved one more comfortable—and for taking care of you—during this hard time.

This poem is written on the death of my grandfather and I still remember his last words seeing me after years as I was abroad. I could not attend him properly, this grief will haunt me throughout my life.

The seriously ill and their families often want to protect each other from thoughts of death. Conversation about end-of-life choices are, however, essential to a good death.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about what happens to your body after you die — and how it's done.

What happens in the transition to Heaven? Inside I discuss the transition to the Otherside and what happens after death, spiritually -

Zygmunt Andrychewicz (1861-1943), Death of the Artist - The Last Friend (Śmierć artysty - Ostatni przyjaciel), 1901, oil on canvas, 103.5 x 125.3 cm. National Museum in Warsaw

I love you and one day I will die. I can not escape it. Death comes to everyone, including me. Death is unavoidable; it will come to all of us, today, tomorrow, next month, next year. Death is unavoidable; even I will die. Even you will die. Everyone we know will die. Death is unavoidable,...

Published/ Created in Paris, for André Bocard, 12 Feb. 1453. The Ars Moriendi, or "art of dying," is a body of Christian literature that provided practical guidance for the dying and those attending them. These manuals informed the dying about what to expect, and prescribed prayers, actions, and attitudes that would lead to a "good death" and salvation. The first such works appeared in Europe during the early fifteenth century, and they initiated a remarkably flexible genre of Christian writing that lasted well into the eighteenth century. By 1400 the Christian tradition had well-established beliefs and practices concerning death, dying, and the afterlife. The Ars Moriendi packaged many of these into a new, concise format. In particular, it expanded the rite for priests visiting the sick into a manual for both clergy and laypeople. Disease, war, and changes in theology and Church policies formed the background for this new work. The Black Death had devastated Europe in the previous century, and its recurrences along with other diseases continued to cut life short. Wars and violence added to the death toll. The Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) between France and England was the era's largest conflict, but its violence and political instability mirrored many local conflicts. The fragility of life under these conditions coincided with a theological shift noted by the historian Philippe Ariès whereas the early Middle Ages emphasized humanity's collective judgment at the end of time, by the fifteenth century attention focused on individual judgment immediately after death. One's own death and judgment thus became urgent issues that required preparation. The two original versions of the Ars Moriendi initiated a long tradition of Christian works on preparation for death. This tradition was wide enough to accommodate not only Roman Catholic writers but also Renaissance humanists and Protestant reformers—all of whom adapted the Ars Moriendi to their specific historical circumstances. Yet nearly all of these authors agreed on one basic change: They placed the "art of dying" within a broader "art of living," which itself required a consistent memento mori, or awareness of and preparation for one's own death. The Ars Moriendi tradition remained strong within the Roman Catholic communities. In his 1995 book From Madrid to Purgatory, Carlos M. N. Eire documented the tradition's influence in Spain where the Ars Moriendi shaped published accounts of the deaths of St. Teresa of Avila (1582) and King Philip II (1598). In his 1976 study of 236 Ars Moriendi publications in France, Daniel Roche found that their production peaked in the 1670s and declined during the period from 1750 to 1799. He also noted the Jesuits' leading role in writing Catholic Ars Moriendi texts, with sixty authors in France alone. Perhaps the era's most enduring Catholic text was composed in Italy by Robert Bellarmine, the prolific Jesuit author and cardinal of the church. In 1619 Bellarmine wrote his last work, The Art of Dying Well. The first of its two books describes how to live well as the essential preparation for a good death. It discusses Christian virtues, Gospel texts, and prayers, and comments at length on the seven sacraments as integral to Christian living and dying. The second book, The Art of Dying Well As Death Draws Near, recommends meditating on death, judgment, hell, and heaven, and discusses the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and extreme unction or the anointing of the sick with oil. Bellarmine then presents the familiar deathbed temptations and ways to counter them and console the dying, and gives examples of those who die well and those who do not. Throughout, Bellarmine reflects a continuing fear of dying suddenly and unprepared. Hence he focuses on living well and meditating on death as leading to salvation even if one dies unexpectedly. To highlight the benefits of dying consciously and well prepared, he claims that prisoners facing execution are "fortunate"; knowing they will die, they can confess their sins, receive the Eucharist, and pray with their minds more alert and unclouded by illness. These prisoners thus enjoy a privileged opportunity to die well. In 1534 the Christian humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a treatise that appeared in English in 1538 as Preparation to Death. He urges his readers to live rightly as the best preparation for death. He also seeks a balance between warning and comforting the dying so that they will be neither flattered into arrogant self-confidence nor driven to despair; repentance is necessary, and forgiveness is always available through Christ. Erasmus dramatizes the deathbed scene in a dialogue between the Devil and the dying Man. The Devil offers temptations to which the Man replies clearly and confidently; having mastered the arts of living and dying, the Man is well prepared for this confrontation. While recognizing the importance of sacramental confession and communion, Erasmus says not to worry if a priest cannot be present; the dying may confess directly to God who gives salvation without the sacraments if "faith and a glad will be present" (Atkinson 1992, p. 56). The Ars Moriendi tradition in England has been especially well documented. It includes translations of Roman Catholic works by Petrus Luccensis and the Jesuit Gaspar Loarte; Thomas Lupset's humanistic Way of Dying Well; and Thomas Becon's Calvinist The Sick Man's Salve. But one literary masterpiece stands out, which is Jeremy Taylor's The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying. When Taylor published Holy Dying in 1651, he described it as "the first entire body of directions for sick and dying people" (Taylor 1977, p. xiii) to be published in the Church of England. This Anglican focus allowed Taylor to reject some elements of the Roman Catholic Ars Moriendi and to retain others. For example, he ridicules deathbed repentance but affirms traditional practices for dying well; by themselves the protocols of dying are "not enough to pass us into paradise," but if "done foolishly, [they are] enough to send us to hell" (Taylor 1977, p. 43). For Taylor the good death completes a good life, but even the best Christian requires the prescribed prayers, penance, and Eucharist at the hour of death. And Holy Dying elegantly lays out a program for living and dying well. Its first two chapters remind readers of their mortality and urge them to live in light of this awareness. In the third chapter, Taylor describes two temptations of the sick and dying: impatience and the fear of death itself. Chapter four leads the dying through exercises of patience and repentance as they await their "clergy-guides," whose ministry is described in chapter five. This bare summary misses both the richness of Taylor's prose and the caring, pastoral tone that led Nancy Lee Beaty, author of The Craft of Dying, to consider Holy Dying, the "artistic climax" of the English Ars Moriendi tradition (Beaty 1970, p. 197). Susan Karant-Nunn, in her 1997 book The Reformation of Ritual, documented the persistence of the Ars Moriendi tradition in the "Lutheran Art of Dying" in Germany during the late sixteenth century. Although the Reformers eliminated devotion to the saints and the sacraments of penance and anointing with oil, Lutheran pastors continued to instruct the dying and to urge them to repent, confess, and receive the Eucharist. Martin Moller's Manual on Preparing for Death (1593) gives detailed directions for this revised art of dying. Karant-Nunn's analysis can be extended into the eighteenth century. In 1728 Johann Friedrich Starck [or Stark], a Pietist clergyman in the German Lutheran church, treated dying at length in his Tägliches Hand-Buch in guten und bösen Tagen. Frequently reprinted into the twentieth century, the Hand-Book became one of the most widely circulated prayer books in Germany. It also thrived among German-speaking Americans, with ten editions in Pennsylvania between 1812 and 1829, and an 1855 English translation, Daily Hand-Book for Days of Rejoicing and of Sorrow. The book contains four major sections: prayers and hymns for the healthy, the afflicted, the sick, and the dying. As the fourth section seeks "a calm, gentle, rational and blissful end," it adapts core themes from the Ars Moriendi tradition: the dying must consider God's judgment, forgive others and seek forgiveness, take leave of family and friends, commend themselves to God, and "resolve to die in Jesus Christ." While demons no longer appear at the deathbed, the temptation to despair remains as the dying person's sins present themselves to "frighten, condemn, and accuse." The familiar remedy of contrition and forgiveness through Christ's passion comforts the dying. Starck offers a rich compendium of "verses, texts and prayers" for bystanders to use in comforting the dying, and for the dying themselves. A confident, even joyful, approach to death dominates these prayers, as the dying person prays, "Lord Jesus, I die for thee, I live for thee, dead and living I am thine. Who dies thus, dies well."

These powerful quotes about losing both parents will help you get through your grief and loss.

I love Art ,Horror and other nice things. All the Pictures that I post do not belong to me!!

About The Artwork Holopherne who laid horizontally and Judith standing on top of it, horizontality and verticality, the contrast between the dead and the living creatures creates an image that passes through the topics I want to deal with through work. Life affected by death, women who want to overthrow the hierarchy, objects of pain and fear can be manipulated in a combination of vertical and horizontal composition. Original Created:2018 Subjects:Mortality Materials:Canvas Styles:ExpressionismFigurativeFine ArtSurrealism Mediums:Oil Details & Dimensions Painting:Oil on Canvas Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork Size:53.9 W x 63.8 H x 0 D in Frame:Not Framed Ready to Hang:Not applicable Packaging:Ships Rolled in a Tube Shipping & Returns Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments. Handling:Ships rolled in a tube. Artists are responsible for packaging and adhering to Saatchi Art’s packaging guidelines. Ships From:South Korea. Have additional questions? Please visit our help section or contact us.

Where was your soul before you were born and do you remember it? PBE Explained. Includes true life tales of children who say they went to Heaven after they died following accidents or illness.

Someone will ask: how do you say that the risen Lord overcame death, but people are still dying? Whoever enters this life through the mother's womb, they come out of this life through death and the grave. Only that death for us, who die in Christ, is no longer a dark abyss, but a birth

No matter how important or lowly we are on this earth, we will all dance the Dance of Death. This was the message behind the depictions of death in its many forms that rose to popularity in medieval times. Death was a very close companion of the poor, as it still is today, so they […]

Just as doulas help clients through the delivery process, death doulas help patients when a cure is no longer possible and provide counsel through their final breath.

A new study recorded brain waves while dying people were resuscitated to see what happens during the out-of-body experiences they later describe.

💬 Browse the handpicked collection of the top DEATH quotes and sayings. Quotes about dying, the death theories and the end of life...

Panta rhei. Everything flows. Heraclitus already realized that everything is under constant change and flow, nothing lasts forever. Although we are conscious of this, we try to stop the transience and preserve the present for the future, always searching for a way which gives us a piece of eternity. But everything living passes away and dies. The death is unavoidable – nothing is immortal. Gaia is a combination of an urn and a plantation system, which interprets the phenomenon of conservation and the wish of immortality in a symbolic way. Made of natural, biodegradable and soluble materials it becomes a unit with the earth and lets new life emerge from the ashes of the deceased, which rises like a phoenix, lives on them and absorbs them. In a certain sense the deceased lives on.

Julie McFadden shares little-known information from her experience as a hospice nurse to ease fear surrounding the taboo of death .

It was 19 years ago Friday when the Nirvana singer died in his Seattle home. Dozens of...

My uncle, the oldest of five children and still only 67 years old, recently died while tending to his garden up in Washington state. These sudden, unexpected deaths of people we love really remind us how precious life really is. It is in these moments, we are forced to face our o

Rachael Bedard writes a personal essay about being a geriatrician and palliative-care physician, and her experiences caring for her grandmother, Harriet, before she died.

75+ death quotes organized into 15 insights to better understand the purpose and meaning of life — and why dying is a natural part of life's development.

It’s difficult to explain. But I’ve been feeling his presence a lot more these days. Lurking around. Waiting. A friend of mine didn’t wake up a couple of weeks ago. Dead at 29. I’d just spent months…