"Why, despite so many reform efforts, has death remained acutely troubling in our common life? Why has modern medicine remained so ambivalent, so torn, in its stance toward death? And most important, why has it become so hard for most of us to understand the place of death in our own lives and self-conception, and to know how to pursue a peaceful death?" "By exploring his own life and the lives and deaths of loved ones, by sharing his own emotions...