Customer Reviews

Intimate Death: How the Dying Teach Us How to Live

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The subtitle "how the dying teach us how to live", had a unusually specific meaning for me. As I watched my emotional response and empathy to the conversations between Hennezel and terminally ill patients, I began to notice how many patients wanted to die earlier, not later, until, that is, their conversation with Hennezel. And, in each case, the patient was glad to have lived another few days, weeks or months because, during the conversations, they began to resolve some outstanding issues about their lives. Just as Hennezel helped them awaken to the value of attending to unfinished business, I too came to realize how much unfinished business I have myself. Or, put another way, I see the backlog of things-I've-hoped-to-do (since retirement) through the lens of "unfinished business."

The conversations between Hennezel and her terminally ill patients are invariably moving because of the warmth that Hennezel and the nurses on the staff extend to their patients. On pages 47-50 Hennezel refers to the field of Haptonomie (found in the French (but not the English) Wikipedia) associated with Frans Veldman which is about the importance of affection and human touch for "affectivity." This is as widely appreciated around child birth as it is under appreciated at the time of death (in the US at least). Hennezel and her co-workers implement this affectivity in their palliative unit for the dying and I think the articulation of that practice is much of what makes this book so emotionally moving, at least for me.

I can open the volume to any pages and within minutes I'm teary eyed. It's the depth of my emotional responses to the moving conversations that keeps me on my new track of attending to unfinished business. I dare not read the whole book in one setting -- perhaps 10 pages/week will keep me moving on what is genuinely a new path for me. I keep wanting to buy a crate of these books and hand them out on the street corner but, after the 1973 publication of Earnest Becker's The Denial of Death, I realized that issues surrounding death are not for everyone.

I wrote everything above almost a year ago but since returning to the book time and again, I now realize something I had not fully appreciated, viz., just how many people in palliative units are begging for an injection to enable them to die. If most adults fully realized how they will likely feel about dying once they approach those final days (in a first rate palliative unit as well as nursing homes with fewer resources), I suspect the laws against euthanasia would be off the books. I think that Becker's phrase, "denial of death," helps explain why euthanasia remains illegal in countries like the US. The inevitability of death gives meaning to life and Hennezel's excellent book facilitates greater presence to the death of others, to one's own mortality and, hence, the value of living.

My mom has advanced cancer and is terminal. I was looking for something to help everyone in my family deal with it all. I was worried that some of the books I came across would be too depressing to give to my mom, but while of course I was sad alot while reading Intimate Death, it was also very uplifting and helpful. I'm really glad I read it *before* my mom dies.

A very powerful book .Spiritual, philosophical,yet very practical for the dying and the survivors.A great teacher about death and dying,de Hennezel leaves you with a powerful lesson about life

My sister and I are caring for her husband at home. He has only a few more days to live. The hospice people are great, but they could not tell us what this book has told us about what to expect now at the end of his life. It has been tremendously helpful for both of us to read this book. I will be buying copies for many people and organizations in the coming years.

a gift from zoey's teacher who became my friend, this book is a strange comfort. subtitled "how the dying teach us how to live", i contemplate the daily journey and choice of work for Marie de Hennezel, the author. She accompanies the dying through setting up palliative care units in France. She accompanies the president and the poor. She tells tender stories of sitting by the side of the dying, offering them a trained stranger's comfort for the truth telling that seems too hard to bear by loved ones. She tells a cutting truth--not devoid of emotion, but certainly not overly emotional. Her life of accompaniment is a series of acts of fact. She recounts them. In her final sentence, she tells her community of readers of her longing to share her discovery of final intimacies as a revelatory exercise in celebrating humanity. It is a moving tribute to herself and those she had accompanied--this book of simple truth telling. She is unabashed as she recounts her involvement in the dying of strangers who become blessed friends. She mentions her children once or twice, her husband only in passing, and it is clear there is either a profound separation between her private life and her work, or that, more likely, her work, the sole subject of this book, is also overshadowing and compelling, perhaps to the detriment of her motherhood and marriage. what a wretched thing to suppose? me, a supposed feminist, reading between the lines to note the intimacy with strangers and the neglect of her family? how dare i? and yet, i am left with that feeling: she is good at her work, but what about her life?

it took me some time to get through this book--and i guess that's the thing about grief. it matters not that other people die, until there is room to see past the death of one's own loved one. and then, there is the invitation to the wider human condition. of course everyone dies. of course many die unaccompanied. of course many, who attend to the deaths of others, cannot, somehow, face the death of their own loved ones. of course. of course. the egoistic centrality of one's own pain makes it difficult to make room for anyone else's. and yet, when i did wade deeper into the water of this book, i was called closer to the moments of "real life" that marie accompanies. like the author, my future work choices may invite a deeper contemplation of what i could and couldn't do for my own father as he faced his final moments. like every poet, i am somewhat fascinated by what it all comes down to, what it means and where we go. like every playwright, i am interested in the untold stories of others and how marie reveals to her readers, that those she accompanies are often unable to go on, until they tell that story to someone else.

for her story, i am grateful to marie de hennezel. for her work, countless others have been moved, touched & inspired.

This is a very important book that prepares people to accept their own death and the death of someone they love. The language is elegant; the feelings heartfelt; and the sentiment remarkable. For those people facing their death, or for those in the process of losing someone, you will find this book extremely comforting.

My sisters and I read this book while our mother prepared to die. It helped me begin to understand emotional patterns of illness and some of the mysteries of death. After reading Intimate Death, I had the strength to stay by my mother's side.

An essential book for anyone involved in caring for a person who is terminally ill. Enormously human, helpful, inspiring.

If a book about death can be beautiful "Intimate Death" is such a book. This book is lovingly translated by Carol Brown Janeway. She retains the warmth of Marie de Hennezel's writing. Marie de Hennezel is a psychologist in a hospital in Paris. She writes eloquently about some of her most memorable patients.

What would you do if a patient asked you to kill them so they didn't have to go through the natural painful process of death? How would you communicate with someone who is totally paralyzed? Should you explain that a patient is dying or keep the information just between you and the family? How do you deal with doctors who view death as a defeat?

Marie de Hennezel answers many questions that might otherwise go unanswered. She believes that you should die with dignity and when a patient is ready to die she calmly accompanies them on this journey.

What impressed me most about this book is how lovingly the patients are treated. You would imagine Marie de Hennezel to be drained by the experience of being in the presence of so many individuals passing to the next life. Yet in some way she becomes more aware of the beauty of life itself.

I feel this book would be especially beneficial to doctors, nurses, hospice care workers, psychologists and family and friends of the dying. There is one brief mention of a near-death experience but mostly this book does not discuss what happens after death.

I feel that to tell too much about this book would ruin its impact. It is best just experienced in a quiet contemplative moment. After reading this book you may feel compelled to listen to Faure: Requiem and other choral music. It is mentioned in this book as music a dying patient loved to listen to and is truly beautiful.

~The Rebecca Review

Marie de Hennezel sits on the beds of hospice patients, holds their hands, touches the painful places, and even rocks them while they have their bandages changed or cry from grief. This hospice psychologist is as comfortable with touch as with silence. She doesn't shy away from murmuring endearments. She seems to know the most helpful and comforting words to say.

I loved each story, including de Hennezel's struggle with her 86-year old father's suicide and her friendship with French president Francois Mitterand, who visited her palliative care unit to see the peaceful ways in which people can die when given proper pain control and compassionate psychological support. When Mitterand was diagnosed with cancer, he asked for her. So would I!

This 1997 book is heartfelt and informative. It is almost as good as the new book From the Start Consider the Finish: A Guide to Excellent End of Life Care, written by a mother-daughter hospice team Susan Dolan and Audrey Vizzard. This little gem contains practical information, engaging stories, and unexpected humor.

Both books show that a good death is not necessarily a quick one with as little suffering or consciousness as possible. The dying process can involve immense personal growth, precious transformation, and deep spiritual peace.

Marie de Hennezel was born in the same year I was, 1946. I would love to meet this extraordinary death doula before I die.

Nancy Manahan, Ph.D., author of Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully - A Journey with Cancer and Beyond