Full of compassion and understanding

books:

	• Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs and Communications of the Dying (Walker Large Print ... Maggie Callanan, Patricia Kelley Walker & Company, 1995 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 164 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

a must read

I cried, I laughed, I longed for time to be rewound so that I could have the chance to spend another hour with my dying mother with the knowledge I gained from this book. This is a must read for everyone.

Full of compassion and understanding

This book is wonderful and allays the fearfulness and helplessness that one feels as a loved one is dying. The vignettes bring insight, understanding, hope, and a sense of calm which empowers us to care for, in the best possible way- a dying friend or family member. The book should be read before the person dies, but reading it afterward will also bring a measure of peace and understanding. Highly recommend.

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Final Gifts

This is a book for EVERYONE. It helps you, as the reader, accept what death is, and also gives you the knowledge to help others through this process. The conclusions that are present in this book are not obvious ones that we realize with age. They are the result of two women's experience with literally hundreds of hospice patients. We can all learn the commonalities that occur with death process, so that we can truly be present and helpful to loved ones. In addition, this book reduced my fear of death. I have already used the knowledge I gleaned from it to help a friend with his father's death.

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Book for a Class

I was required to read this book for a class, while I found the book very interesting, it seemed somewhat repititous. I learned a lot from the book about the process of dying that I did not understand before and I think this book would be good for someone who is helping to care for a dying loved one.

Comfort in grief

A nurse friend confirms the observations that Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley make in FINAL GIFTS. However, the case studies presented here are not supported by data to substantiate the claims Callanan and Kelley make regarding the purported prevalence of these various types of Nearing Death Awareness observations.

While nurses may be able to easily identify the types of cases presented here and their prevalence (like my friend), this non-nurse reader would certainly have appreciated at least some references to corroborating literature, or "further reading" references, if not some outright data provided in the text, to add depth to this book. The case studies were too repetitive in their descriptions of particular experiences, only fueling the skepticism I tried to stifle, especially as my own experiences have sometimes been considerably different and less peaceful. What nursing interventions improved the ability of the patients to communicate? The text introducing or summarizing cases was often repetitive as well, though this improved in later chapters that seemed somehow better written.

Despite these shortcomings, I found this book helpful in dealing with my own grief over the death of someone close to me who suffered a very short-term illness. I appreciated the emphasis the authors give to listening to the dying, rather than hastily judging or jumping to the conclusion that their communications and experiences are the result of "disorientation" or "confusion". And I appreciated, too, the help the authors have given me in explaining to others the importance and satisfaction of participating in hospice support and care.

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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