Life'S Last Gift: Giving and Receiving Peace When a Loved One is Dying - Hardcover

Library Journal

Garfield, Charles. Life's Last Gift: Giving and Receiving Peace When a Loved One Is Dying. Central Recovery. Sept. 2017. 194p. bibliog. cloth ISBN 9781942094494. $25; pap. ISBN 9781942094500. $15.95; ebk. ISBN 9781942094517. death/grief/bereavement

Garfield, PhD and founder of the Shanti Project, a widely acclaimed AIDS and cancer service organization, delivers a compassionate guide to help friends and families ease a loved one's final days. Readers learn how to apply a series of commitments to the dying (e.g., promising to remember that person's wisdom), which, according to the author, sustains emotional closeness and nourishes the relationship. Exercises on death personalization and empathy and outlined starting points for small but significant actions are included, with Garfield adding, "be sure to say goodbye." VERDICT A comprehensive end-of-life guide with extensive resources to benefit both the living and the dying.

Publishers Weekly

Life's Last Gift: Giving and Receiving Peace When a Loved One Is Dying by Charles Garfield. Central Recovery, $15.95 trade paper (194p) ISBN 978-1-942094-50-0

Garfield (Sometimes My Heart Goes Numb), founder of the Shanti Project, a service organization dedicated to those with terminal illnesses, believes dying people need to hear someone say, "I will stand with you in the midst of despair." From this standpoint, he entreats caregivers of the dying to make nine commitments to themselves and their loved ones to "heal without cures." He encourages caregivers to be as present as possible by listening, speaking, and acting from the heart to set a foundation for care. Garfield tackles these topics with clinical experience as well as with the firsthand account of managing the end of life for his mother and father. In one reflection, he courageously shares his response when his mother brought up assisted suicide--although he understood her pain, he couldn't actively allow her to die. Garfield shows how to resolve conflict and be supportive even when caregivers and the dying disagree about care. Deeply exploring tough topics such as pain management and relationship reconciliation, this resource will give readers a place to go for comfort, direction, and answers. (Oct.)

After four decades of training volunteers to sit at the bedsides of the dying, psychologist and Shanti founder Charles Garfield has created an essential guide for friends and families who want to offer comfort and ease their loved ones' final days.

Life's Last Gift is an indispensible emotional lifeline to hand to the grief-stricken, offering compassionate, practical advice on reaffirming connection and acquiring skills to be of the greatest service to those at the end of life. By focusing on the reciprocal and healing relationship between the living and the dying, which continues until the last breath, Garfield offers a path toward clarity and wholeness, and even growth.

• More than 90 percent of Americans believe it is a family's responsibility to provide care for a loved one who is dying, and more than 650,000 people in the United States each year die at home, where much of the caregiving is done by family members and friends.

• Approximately 43.5 million caregivers have provided unpaid care to an adult or child in the last twelve months (National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, 2015).

Charles Garfield, PhD, founded Shanti, an internationally honored volunteer organization dedicated to the care of the dying and those living with cancer and AIDS, and the Shanti National Training Institute, which takes Shanti's model to organizations around the world. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association, he is currently a research scholar at the Starr King School of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.