Posted inNonfiction, Reading List

Rest in Peace: Stories About Death Care

I’ve been thinking: What would my life look like if I were not afraid of death? Thinking too closely about not existing, not having a consciousness, sends me spiraling into a panic attack. Protestant Christians believe in an afterlife—a heaven, a hell. I did, too, for a while. I was confident, fervent, about heaven. I was no longer afraid to die. Now I’m not so sure. Nothingness scares me, but so does an eternity spent somewhere else.

Posted inNonfiction, Reading List

Rest in Peace: Stories About Death Care

I’ve been thinking: What would my life look like if I were not afraid of death? Thinking too closely about not existing, not having a consciousness, sends me spiraling into a panic attack. Protestant Christians believe in an afterlife—a heaven, a hell. I did, too, for a while. I was confident, fervent, about heaven. I was no longer afraid to die. Now I’m not so sure. Nothingness scares me, but so does an eternity spent somewhere else.

Posted inQuotes

Blast Force: The Invisible War on the Brain

After the First World War, family and friends said that sometimes, boys came back from overseas “not right in the head.” Nearly 100 years later, the American military is only just starting to understand the effects of bomb blasts on soldiers’ brains and the prescience of those casual observations. Caroline Alexander reports in National Geographic […]

Posted inNonfiction, Reading List

The Business of Being Born: A Reading List

Beyond the tired binaries of midwife vs. doctor and home birth vs. hospital birth. 1. “How We Made Our Miracle.” (Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC, Feb. 2014) After political commentator Melissa Harris-Perry shared pictures of her newborn daughter on Valentine’s Day, she wrote about her past health problems, her history with childbirth, and making the decision to […]

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