Celebrating A Life

A guide of alternatives to traditional funerals, commemorating lost loved ones in a meaningful, personal way. Today, many people are forgoing the trappings and timeworn rituals of typical funerals, and are instead opting to celebrate their loved ones’ lives. With careful planning, services like these can truly honor the person who has died—and both comfort and uplift those who attend. Celebrating a Life offers sensitive guidance on every detail—venue, food and drink, music, flowers, eulogy, program, mementoes—all with the aim of making sure the memorial service’s honoree is remembered just as he or she would have wished. Checklists and an extensive resource directory provide much-needed help to those who have very little time to make arrangements. As author Faith Moore says, this book is not about regrets, but about reimagining how we say good-bye. “In a caring, practical, and authoritative way, Faith Moore tackles a very difficult topic. Her direct and warm advice is a fabulous resource. This book is a must-read for anyone who will face the inevitability of honoring and celebrating the life of a deceased love one.” —Peggy Post, director of the Emily Post Institute and author of Emily Post’s Etiquette, 17th Edition

Remembering Well offers family members, clergy, funeral professionals, and hospice workers ways to plan services and rituals that honor the spirit of the deceased and are faithful to that person's values and beliefs, while also respecting the needs and wishes of those who will attAnd the services. It is an essential resource for anyone who yearns to put death in a spiritual context but is unsure how to do so-including both those who have broken with tradition and those who wish to give new meaning to the time-honored rituals of their faith. The real-life stories, examples, and practical guidelines in this book address a wide array of important issues, including the difficult decisions that survivors must make quickly when a death occurs-and the sensitive topic of family alienation, where possibilities for healing, forgiveness, and hope are explored. The invaluable insights offered here will help those who grieve to prepare mind and spirit for life's final rites of passage.

Following the painful loss of his father, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks began to learn how to celebrate life in a new way. He discovered where happiness lives, through family, community, friendship, and responsibilities -- and through a renewed relationship with God. (No Canadian Rights)

The universe has bestowed limitless powers and infinite siddhis on the human consciousness. Along with being effective and successful in the personal and professional spheres, the purpose of human life is also to ensure the complete blossoming of the individual consciousness. In Celebrating Life, Rishi Nityapragya shares the secrets that can help you explore your infinite potential. He offers an in-depth understanding of how to identify and be free from negative emotions and harmful tendencies, and how to learn to invoke life's beautiful flavours-like enthusiasm, love, compassion and truth-whenever and wherever you want. Celebrating Life is an intensely honest expedition that teaches you how you can be a master of your circumstances and make your life a celebration.

Reinforcing the 1-800-FLOWERS.COM and Celebrations.com philosophy of helping customers express, connect, and celebrate, Jim McCann balances the practical with the poignant in this a collection of sympathetic sentiments designed to share affection, appreciation, grief, and love for someone who has died. Reinforcing the 1-800-FLOWERS.COM and Celebrations.com philosophy of helping customers express, connect, and celebrate, Jim McCann balances the practical with the poignant inside Celebrating Life. More than just a collection of sympathetic sentiments, Celebrating Life serves as a catalyst for sharing profound affection, appreciation, grief, and love for someone who has died. This inspirational gift book of sympathy is perfect for quiet moments of reflection or for sharing at memorials, anniversaries, funerals, wakes, and other special occasions that pay tribute to the life of a loved one. Full-color drawings illustrate the book throughout and are interspersed with meaningful quotes and heartfelt reflections on saying goodbye, healing, remembering, and celebrating life. Divided into four sections, Celebrating Life features 120 entries, including: * Saying Goodbye: "The gods conceal from men the happiness of death, that they may endure life." --Lucan * Healing: "What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal." --Albert Pike * "When We Meet Again... : "Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last--and final--awakening." --Sir Walter Scott * "Reflecting and Rituals: "Death is the most beautiful adventure in life." --Charles Frohman

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A special 25th anniversary edition of the beloved book that has changed millions of lives with the story of an unforgettable friendship, the timeless wisdom of older generations, and healing lessons on loss and grief—featuring a new afterword by the author “A wonderful book, a story of the heart told by a writer with soul.”—Los Angeles Times “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was his college professor Morrie Schwartz. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder. Wouldn’t you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger? Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man’s life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live. “The truth is, Mitch,” he said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie’s lasting gift with the world.

Parting Ways explores the emergence of new end-of-life rituals in America that celebrate the dying and reinvent the roles of family and community at the deathbed. Denise Carson contrasts her father’s passing in the 1980s, governed by the structures of institutionalized death, with her mother’s death some two decades later. Carson’s moving account of her mother’s dying at home vividly portrays a ceremonial farewell known as a living wake, showing how it closed the gap between social and biological death while opening the door for family and friends to reminisce with her mother. Carson also investigates a variety of solutions--living funerals, oral ethical wills, and home funerals--that revise the impending death scenario. Integrating the profoundly personal with the objectively historical, Parting Ways calls for an "end of life revolution" to change the way of death in America.

"This multivolume encyclopedia concentrates on rites of passage, traditions, rituals, and life customs that take place around the world. The scope of this book takes in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and even outer space, and covers customs experienced by men, women, children, and animals, in groups or as individuals. Volume 1 examines customs pertaining to birth and early childhood. Volume 2 looks at the coming-of-age customs of teens and those in early adulthood. Volume 3 covers entries relating to aging and death. The set features beautiful color inserts that illustrate examples of celebrations and ceremonies and includes an appendix of excerpts from primary documents that include legislation on government-accepted names, wedding vows, and maternity/paternity leave regulations"--