Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them)

The poetics of this book, mixed with its vital and necessary information about being with death, broke my heart at least once a page, often more. I believe that every time your heart breaks, you build a necessary resilience for staying alive.

By the end of the book, all the pieces of my heart had somehow been mended, leaving me with a new understanding of what being alive is about. In the months leading up to my grandmother’s death, I returned to this book many times, and it helped me give her a beautiful death in her home, just as… show more.

I read this book for the first time about five years ago, and my first thought when I finished it was, “Everyone who is going to die needs this book.” This is the best thing I’ve read on the personal choices around dying and supporting someone who is dying.

I love the clear, level-headed, plain-spoken, simple, and elegant text and the way that Tisdale uses personal storytelling and philosophical reflection to help us address what we might otherwise avoid. I will return to this book over and over as I support sick or dying friends, and you can bet it… show more.

I turned to this book as a meditation on death and dying, which was written by an award-winning author who’s spent more than a decade working in palliative care and as a nurse. The first page of the book asks us to imagine our own death—and the details that follow. I appreciated the focus on preparing a death plan, much like a birth plan for a new mother, as well as advance directives. She helped me think about the question: What makes a good death and to what extent can we plan for it?