A patient is told she has only six months to live, and the priorities in her life suddenly shift. Death can be one of our greatest teachers, if we are willing to open ourselves to the shadows of the unknown. Rodney Smith has been confronting death on a daily basis as a hospice social worker. To this experience he brings his time as a Buddhist monk, delving into the workings of the mind. This alchemical combination has produced a book that, page for page, word for word, is one of the best "meaning of life" books around, rivaling Victor Frankl's classic Man's Search for Meaning in power and insight and surpassing it in depth. Complementing his many anecdotes of personal confrontations with death, Smith analyzes why and how we often short-change ourselves emotionally, and at the end of each chapter, he offers exercises for cultivating human wholeness. There are books about death and grieving. This is a book about transforming life. --Brian Bruya
