On the Threshold of Worlds

When a loved one comes to the threshold of their existence, and their last breath nears, who will tend their body? Who will wash them, pray with them, sit vigil with them? These questions, like this book, are at once practical and mythical. In telling the story of his father's journey with early Alzheimer's, of his final breaths, and how family and friends tended his body afterwards without help from the funeral industry, Joseph Orso inspires the reader through elemental, illuminated grief. In a world that has forgotten our basic responsibilities to each other, On the Threshold of Worlds is a tale for a time of remembering. In a technologically obsessed age that sees suffering and death as glitches, this book invites readers into an age made holy again by the work of human hands. Exploring both personal and cultural loss of meaning, it makes a case that tending a beloved's body after death is an ancient inheritance, essential for remembering what we are as human beings.

Joseph Orso lives with his family near the West Fork of the Kickapoo River in Wisconsin, where they tend a garden, chickens, and sheep. More at josephorso.com.