DEATH AND BEYOND : A Book Review
The last five questions, in order, were: "Where do you go when you die?"
"Are you able to come back as a ghost and haunt people?" "What is
heaven like?" "Are there such things as ghosts?" and "What is hell like?"
Several students responded, "I don't want to think about it."
(Introduction, xiii)
I was also struck by Jim's professionalism and thoroughness. He sought out and interviewed intensive care nurses, school counselors, police officers, family practice doctors and funeral directors to obtain correct facts and to procure opinions from real experts about all the topics he covered.
And although Jim Watkins is a deeply religious man, I never felt preached at while reading the book. Instead he presented ideas from all angels and left it to the reader to form their own conclusions.
Did I learn anything myself from reading Death & Beyond ?
In a humorous sideline to this review, it seemed to me that Jim Watkins had used my "inner child/1renni" on which to base his fictitious character, Lori. He wrote...
She could outrun, outpitch, and outfight most of the boys in the neighborhood.
(Part One, pg. 3)
In his section on, "How Many Tens Die Each Year?" I learned that nearly one-third of all children in the US die before birth due to abortions and that in 1993, the statistics also reported that thirty-eight thousand teens would die from different causes in the US alone.
In Chapter 5, "What Are Some Ways to Avoid Death?" I learned that in 1967 at a Los Angeles company, the first human was freeze dried by a method of using cryogenics.
In Chapter 9, "How Can a Person Deal with Dead Bodies?" I learned more than I wanted to know about how an embalming is performed by an undertaker.
And In Chapter 10, What Do You Say at a Funeral?" I learned, for the first time at age 52, what is and is not helpful to say to a grieving person at a funeral and why.
The most personal and helpful information I received from reading this book came to me from Chapter 6, "How Can a Person Deal with Accidents and Terminal Illness?" I actually related something that Jim Watkins had said in that chapter to my own life experience. A student in one of my classes had asked me for advice after class. She was having trouble with the therapist she was seeing for the treatment of her social anxiety.
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