Since the rise in deaths through Covid-19, there has been an increase in the need for personal, heartfelt ceremonies to celebrate the end of life. More and more people are questioning traditional ideas and realising that there are choices out there. Drawing upon her years of experience in working in the funeral industry, Sarah Chapman uniquely collates all the key information needed into a single comprehensive resource. This must-have guide will holistically support you from the moment someone dies to their funeral, while also empowering you to plan your own end-of-life care and ceremony. This step-by-step guide will take away the fear and uncertainty you may feel when faced with arranging the funeral of a loved one. It gives you back control in creating a fitting ceremony to celebrate their life, while also providing you with the tools to plan your own funeral in a way that is unique to you. It will help you to decide on the legacy you would like to leave for future generations, and you may even decide to plan your own living ceremony before you die.

Based on Alan Wolfelt's six needs of mourning and written to pair with "Companioning the Grieving Child", this thorough guide provides hundreds of hands-on activities tailored for grieving children in three age groups: preschool, elementary, and teens. Through the use of readings, games, discussion questions, and arts and crafts, caregivers can help grieving young people acknowledge the reality of the death, embrace the pain of the loss, remember the person who died, develop a new self-identity, search for meaning, and accept support. Sample activities include grief sock puppets, expression bead bracelets, the nurturing game, and writing an autobiographical poem. Activities are presented in an easy-to-follow format, and each has a goal, an objective, a sequential description of the activity, and a list of needed materials.

'A beacon of hope in a dark world' Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Pool One night in November 2015, when Antoine Leiris was at home looking after his baby son, his wife Helene was killed, along with 88 other people, at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris. Three days later, Antoine wrote an open letter to his wife's killers on Facebook. He refused to be cowed or to let his baby son's life be defined by their acts. 'For as long as he lives, this little boy will insult you with his happiness and freedom,' he wrote. Instantly, that short post caught fire and was shared thousands of times around the world. An extraordinary and heartbreaking memoir, You Will Not Have My Hate is a universal message of hope and resilience in our troubled times.

'Compelling reading' - Alison Weir 'A fresh and admirably unsentimental account' - Peter Marshall The voyage of the Mayflower in 1620 has come to typify those qualities that many believe represent the best of America and the values it holds up to the rest of the world. And yet, if they lived today, the courageous men, women and children who made that journey would not recognize themselves in the romantic retelling of their story in popular books and movies of the last century or so. So what were the motivating forces behind this momentous voyage? Derek Wilson strips away the over-painting from the icon to discover the complex range of religious, political and commercial concerns that led this group of hopeful but fallible human beings to seek a new life on the other side of the world.

In Radical Acts of Love, Janie Brown, oncology nurse of thirty years and counsellor of cancer patients with terminal diagnoses, recounts twenty conversations she has had with the dying; including those personally close to her. Each conversation uncovers a different perspective and experience of death, while at the same time exploring its universalities. As well as offering an extremely sensitive and wise insight into our final moments, Brown offers practical ways to facilitate the shift from feeling helpless about death to feeling hopeful; from fear to acceptance; from feeling disconnected and alone, to becoming part of the wider, collective story of our mortality.

A Columbia University physician comes across a popular medieval text on dying well written after the horror of the Black Plague and discovers ancient wisdom for rethinking death and gaining insight today on how we can learn the lost art of dying well in this wise, clear-eyed book that is as compelling and soulful as Being Mortal, When Breath Becomes Air, and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. As a specialist in both medical ethics and the treatment of older patients, Dr. L. S. Dugdale knows a great deal about the end of life. Far too many of us die poorly, she argues. Our culture has overly medicalized death: dying is often institutional and sterile, prolonged by unnecessary resuscitations and other intrusive interventions. We are not going gently into that good night--our reliance on modern medicine can actually prolong suffering and strip us of our dignity. Yet our lives do not have to end this way. Centuries ago, in the wake of the Black Plague, a text was published offering advice to help the living prepare for a good death. Written during the late Middle Ages, ars moriendi--The Art of Dying--made clear that to die well, one first had to live well and described what practices best help us prepare. When Dugdale discovered this Medieval book, it was a revelation. Inspired by its holistic approach to the final stage we must all one day face, she draws from this forgotten work, combining its wisdom with the knowledge she has gleaned from her long medical career. The Lost Art of Dying is a twenty-first century ars moriendi, filled with much-needed insight and thoughtful guidance that will change our perceptions. By recovering our sense of finitude, confronting our fears, accepting how our bodies age, developing meaningful rituals, and involving our communities in end-of-life care, we can discover what it means to both live and die well. And like the original ars moriendi, The Lost Art of Dying includes nine black-and-white drawings from artist Michael W. Dugger. Dr. Dugdale offers a hopeful perspective on death and dying as she shows us how to adapt the wisdom from the past to our lives today. The Lost Art of Dying is a vital, affecting book that reconsiders death, death culture, and how we can transform how we live each day, including our last.

Attempting to demythologize the process of dying, Nuland explores how we shall die, each of us in a way that will be unique. Through particular stories of dying--of patients, and of his own family--he examines the seven most common roads to death: old age, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, accidents, heart disease, and strokes, revealing the facets of death's multiplicity.

"It's impossible to read How We Die without realizing how earnestly we have avoided this most unavoidable of subjects, how we have protected ourselves by building a cultural wall of myths and lies. I don't know of any writer or scientist who has shown us the face of death as clearly, honestly and compassionately as Sherwin Nuland does here."--James Gleick

When her brother dies of AIDS and her husband dies of cancer in the same year, Rosemary is left on her own with two young daughters and antsy addiction demons dancing in her head. This is the nucleus of The Art of Losing It a young mother jerking from emergency to emergency as the men in her life drop dead around her; a high-functioning radio show host waging war with her addictions while trying to raise her two little girls who just lost their daddy; and finally, a stint in rehab and sobriety that ushers in a fresh brand of chaos instead of the tranquility her family so desperately needs. Heartrending but ultimately hopeful, The Art of Losing It is the story of a struggling mother who finds her way-slowly, painfully-from one side of grief and addiction to the other.

'Essential reading for anyone who has been through the sadness of a lost pregnancy' The Times 'Sensitive and insightful' Sunday Times Style 'This book will be a godsend to any woman going through the murky devastation that is called miscarriage but feels like something else entirely: the loss of a baby' Ariel Levy 'A compassionate, nuanced book that does this very complicated grief justice' Pandora Sykes 'This book will be the friend to hold your hand while you navigate your own pathway of grief. I'm so glad it's here' Elle Wright Beyond Grief also contains interviews with experts and other women who have experienced losses of their own, including Elizabeth Day, Leandra Medine Cohen, Melissa Odabash, Jools Oliver, Alexandra Stedman and Latham Thomas. Pippa Vosper tragically lost her son Axel in 2017, when she was five months pregnant, and has since written about miscarriage and baby loss online and in a series of pieces for Vogue. Beyond Grief: Navigating the Journey of Pregnancy and Baby Loss is the book she wishes had been available when her son died. It covers every aspect of pregnancy and baby loss at any stage, from the practical to the emotional, with advice from experts and stories from women who have been through it themselves. Beyond Grief offers both an inclusive perspective and a guiding hand to anyone who has experienced any kind of pregnancy loss, as well as those who are trying to support them through it.

This innovative guide to the chakras explains how grief and trauma impacts on every level of our being, and provides the tools to help clients experiencing trauma and grief by influencing, balancing and nurturing the chakra system. The book provides thorough and clear explorations of each chakra, their connections to each other, and tantric ways of working with energy. It features over 100 expressive and experiential exercises to remedy the ill-effects of grief and trauma, including yoga poses, mudras, pranayama (breath exercises), journaling, creation of ritual, use of essential oils and crystals and stones. Drawing on expertise as a licensed counselor, psychotherapist and yoga therapist, and personal experience as a bereaved mother, the author shares the teachings, practices and philosophies of yoga's ancient wisdom in a new way, and shows how to sustain personal chakra balancing that will resonate through all areas of life.

The Funerary International series comprises essential reference texts for policy-makers, practitioners and academics with an interest in funerary practices globally. Each book has a country or region specific focus, addressing a standard framework of questions to aid comparison. This book sets English and Welsh funerary practice in its wider legal, national and local governance framework, including the continuing role of the Church of England. It provides the historical context for current practice, provides data on new trends in burial and cremation and examines recent developments including direct cremation and alkaline hydrolysis. It provides detail of current practice and includes a detailed description of a typical funeral, including commemorative practice, and discussion of funeral costs. Chapters address the legalities and technicalities of burial and cremation, explaining the concept of burial rights and the technicalities of grave construction, and outlining cremation certification requirements and the process of cremation. This book is a valuable desk-top resource to give a broader frame of reference for policy makers, and to provide explanation of key concepts for practitioners who may be new to this area of work. The text will be of particular value to academics that may be unfamiliar with the legal, technical and professional aspects of the funerary industry. The text is fully referenced, with an additional bibliography of further reading, and includes illustrations, charts, tables, diagrams and boxed text including key information.