The Last, Best Lessons: A Way of Aging

A way to age and die responsibly for the sake of caregivers, family, and the planet. Based on the painful but also redeeming experiences of "Sarah Z.", The Last, Best Lessons creates a framework for conscious aging called "Sarah's Window. Using Sarah's Window, aging and dying can become a holistic process based on simplifying expectations; contributing by taking on ancient responsibilities of the aging; going deep into one's own life story and unfulfilled desires; and caring and connecting all the way until the end of life. For people in the earlier stages of aging and their families, the book is both a story of what happens when the facts of aging into death are not thought through, and also ways to prepare for them so as to live and die with dignity and peace of mind.

Roberta Culbertson, Ph.D. wrote on refugee experiences and mass violence for over twenty years. She is the author of Siege: Crisis Leadership and the Survival of U.S. Embassy Kuwait (with Nathaniel Howell), and Dangerous Worlds: A Spiritual Guide to PTSD. Through the Center on Violence and Community at the University of Virginia and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, she edited several publications for survivors of violence: Surviving War: Poetry, Essays and Photographs; Sacred Bearings; and Tough Times Companion. She was trained as a chaplain and has worked with people aging into dying for over ten years.