"On Living" by Kerry Egan (A Book Review)

On Living
    A book by hospice chaplain Kerry Egan,
    Who tells the stories of those she met,
         As they transitioned from this life to the next.
 
Patients recall life stories:
    Babies they gave away and regained;
    Promises kept, then broken;
    Bible passages that illustrated deeper stories
        when impending death robbed their voices;
    The fear of not being reunited with loved ones after death;
    Lies on top of lies, shed by a shaman;
    Appearing angels to ease the passage;
    Shame from blame of a child’s death;
    The duality of a fatherhood experienced twice.
 
On Living tells us more about life than it does about death.
    To live without regret,
    To say now what you’re saving to say at the deathbed,
            Because you rarely get the chance to have that Hollywood soliloquy. 
 
Every life is full of experiences that make us remember we are alive--
     The fears, regrets, pain,
     The risks, revelations, joy,
     The heartbreak, the hardship,
     The heart-felt, the companionship,
     The promise of another day to revise the life we’ve lived.
 
On Living is an important reminder,
     That we are not remembered by our deaths,
     Rather, we’re remembered for the lives we’ve lived.
     And if we want to be remembered,
     Then we need to make sure our lives have meaning.