I heard about this book from someone who works in palliative care. I am a psychotherapist but have always been on the phobic side when it comes to death and dying, particularly my own. Sallie Tisdale is brilliant in her decision to go through different aspecta for the dying human being as well as for the witnesses or companions. There is nothing trite about this book, no set steps and if anything, Tisdale winds up joining us in all the possibilities--in authentic fear and longing, in messiness and even humor. She joins us or she kind of welcomes the reader to join her there. Amazingly to me, Tisdale is a Buddhist who never claims any immunity from her own moods and unrealistic wishes; she is a witness also to her own humanness all the way through. She doesn't make death go away, duh!, but she makes it easier to think and talk about. This is not a book to read only once and it makes the most enlightened of us (or so we thought) reconsider our own burial plans as well. Yes, not convenient, but excellent and I think, necessary.