Customer Reviews

To Live Until We Say Goodbye-paperback

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Reading a book about confrontations with death and dying by the terminal ill and by their families and loved ones may not sound like anyone's idea of "escapist fare" or a good rainy day pick-me-up, but this large picture book is first and foremost about the value of life and living. Undoubtedly one of the most "important" books I have read, To Live Until We Say Good-Bye spotlights three personal stories: a New York City poet and model dying of cancer, a young girl suffering with a brain tumor, and an older woman who refuses treatment of her illness to lead the remainder of her life in her own home. The stories are remarkable because there is a touching sense of revelation to each--that none of them had perhaps lived so fully and completely until they learned time was running out. The young girl's story, "Jamie," is especially moving because it not only deals with her concerns and fears about her future, but also those of her single mother and her young brother--and, ultimately, although the process of losing a loved one is unimaginably painful, the family is able to find some peace in their ability to make the final days meaningful--and full of life. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross narrates the stories, and Mal Warshaw provides the photographs; together, they have assembled an unpretentious and dignified lesson about seeking the value in life--surely, a message that is beneficial to and yet overlooked very often by us all

The book, To Live Until We Say Good-Bye, is not your common book on dying and grief or even the medical psychology of it, as is quite internationally acknowledged with many of Kubler-Ross's previous works, i.e. On Death and Dying and On Children and Death, et cetera. Rather, out of all of her works (Kubler-Ross), I would have to say that this one is the most accessible and the most outright, in-your-face emotional, the one that really tugs at the heartstrings. But it is a work that does so in a positive, open and meaningful way. Medical and psychiatric jargon is totally set aside and the four dying patients-for whom this book is about-Beth, Jamie, Louise and Jack, are allowed to come to the forefront, to have their stories and experiences related to those (the readers) who are living or could possible be dying themselves. Accompanied by the well written text of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and the varied contributors are the affecting black and white photographs by Mal Warshaw, photos taken of the very subjects in their assorted states in the dying process. Nothing is held back in respects to the people who are profiled-the good, the bad and the ugly-yet dignity unequivocally pervades. In this book, we meet a former model (Beth), who to the very end, clung to her physical beauty as her paramount asset. However, her written poetry illustrated her articulate and intelligent substance that went way beyond looks: "Voices whispering, Beth, Beth/You can no longer stay/Hand reaching out to grasp/Helping me on my way./I'll no longer ache with sorrow/No longer feel this pain/So adieu and fare thee well now/I shan't see thee again. (P. 37). Also, we meet 71-year-old Jack, a former construction worker and rebounding alcoholic who sadly, lived to see his son die of lung cancer. But he found redemption and purpose by building doll houses for charity while as a patient at St. Rose's Home, run by the Hawthorne Dominicans in New york City. Through the series of photographs, his religious and psychological evolution becomes clearly evident, and it is a humbling and beautiful thing to see. And it is so for all those profiled, especially for Jamie and Louise, the other two patients who become are teachers. And their chapters are equally moving and powerful, if not more so. There too is an in-depth chapter on the fantastic work done by hospice and the heroics of everyday volunteers, people young and old who do not give "all" of themselves in order to give the best of themselves. All in all, To Live Until We Say Good-Bye is another great work that looks at life's final journey.

Kubler Ross- got this book right. The many telling photographs intermixed with very personal accounts of the dying and their family and friends makes for a moving and compelling journey into the emotions, experiences, challenges, disappointments of the dying.
The right balance between peronsal narratives, the authors commentary and photographs was achieved in this book- a feat most books on death and dying do not. Couple this book with Donald Heinzs book The Last Passage and as a friend, relative or caretaker of the dying youll have insight and knowledge into the world of the dying and some insights on what to do when someone you care about is dying.

Ponder this thought: you've just been apprised by your family doctor that you are terminally ill and have but a brief time left on this earth. Later, someone happens by and is interested in documenting your final sojourn through interviews and photographs, wherein life's most poignant and definitive moment is embraced. How would you respond? This is precisely what Swiss-born, American psychiatrist and world renowned thanatologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004), did in her scant 160 page, but heart-rending, 1978 book, "To Live Until We Say Good-Bye."

Mal Warshaw, the photographer for this work, originally proposed the concept for it after snapping black and white pictures of a 42 year old New York model dying of cancer--his friend "Beth," which he brought to Kubler-Ross, whom he eventually worked in conjunction with for this project. They later randomly selected the four other main characters for this photo essay: "Jamie," a five year old girl diagnosed with a brain tumor, along with her mother--"Linda," from suburban New York; "Louise"--a social worker in her mid-50's from Cleveland, who had breast cancer; and "Jack"--a 71 year old construction worker and superintendent of apartments from New York City, living with liver cancer.

Many are familiar with Kubler-Ross's five step process for those confronted with the sudden dilemma of dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, which she alludes to throughout the book. This volume's quintessential purpose--offering natural, thought inspiring photographs of those who acceded to sharing their struggle, really speak for themselves, such as the one of Kubler-Ross giving Louise the urn for her ashes. The author emphasizes that unfinished business, guilt and fear are what most plagues a dying patient's last days.

In American humanistic psychologist Clark E. Moustakas's 1977 book, "Turning Points," he quotes (from "Death in the First Person," American Journal of Nursing, 1970) an anonymous, lonely and dying student nurse, who uttered--for other nurses, provocative words regarding their not viewing, or relating to, her as a person because of trepidation, often masked by academic routine: "If you really care, would you lose so much of your valuable professionalism if you even cried with me?" This is what not only Kubler-Ross--the Doctor, but Elisabeth--the humanitarian, did through her compassion, sensitivity and intimacy with the dying, which was all the aforementioned woman wanted.

Kubler-Ross's book has to be the classic work on the subject of choreographing what actually transpires during life's most tempestuous vicissitudes, which she describes as "windstorms." She then closes her testament by stating, "I hope that this book encourages people to expose themselves to these windstorms, so that at the end of their own days, they will be proud to look in the mirror and be pleased with the carvings of their own canyon."

If you want an eternal snapshot of the dance of death, that is not just another exercise in lugubriousness, but one which offers faith and renewal of the human spirit, buy "To Live Until We Say Good-Bye" by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross with Mal Warshaw, where off the tree of fate a many faceted fruit awaits your fingers' probing.

This book has taught me to experience the words that may have never been spoken if I had not of encountered Kubler~Ross through her work with the dying. We have a need to thank her for the journey she took ....