All of Us: Americans Talk about the Meaning of Death

""Tell me how you die and I'll tell you who you are."--Mexican Folk Adage"
A friend of mine had...quietly died in his sleep. My daughter, who was around six or seven, walked in just in time to hear someone say, "Wow, I wish I could die like that." And she said, very matter-of-factly, "everyone gets their own." I said, "Their own what, honey?" thinking she was talking about the sandwiches we'd made for the kids or the cake we are going to have later. And she said, "Death. Everyone gets their own death. You don't have to share."--Marilee Longacre, 37, Waitress
"I was taught [as a child] that when you die you go to heaven, and there's a kind of weighing of what you did on earth. In heaven you are yourself, but also there's this shape that you become, as the result of your attitudes, your actions...almost like the way you were on earth is the mold for who you become. I didn't have any problem believing that there was a life after death because it seemed to me that human beings were too amazing to just disappear into nothing."--Lee Davis, 50, Teacher
Death is, and has always been, with us. But in recent years, medical advances, technology and cultural pressures have conspired to push away our awareness of it. In Patricia Anderson's extraordinary book, she presents the voices of over sixty Americans, some in the public eye (Isabel Allende, Andrew Weil, Robert Thurman, Laurie Anderson), others from 'ordinary' life, who reveal the rich variety of experience, feelings and beliefs about death.