Category: Reviews

It is the rare funeral director who understands how to serve grieving families with genuine empathy and lives an open-hearted, on-purpose life, personally and professionally. Such a funeral director makes a transformative difference in the lives of thousands.Such a funeral director as Mark Anthony. His words of wisdom in this insightful book will help the readers befriend loss, grief, and death so that they might truly live their precious days here on earth.

Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt Author, Educator, Grief Counselor Director, Center for Loss and Life Transition

Principles are borne best on the wings of a story.  With warmth, compassion, candor, and humor, Mark weaves together a tapestry that considers death, consolation, family struggles, abandonment, joy, pure love, and a host of other human experiences. Though this little volume is filled with spiritual musings, his storytelling never resorts to a “preachy” tone. Instead, he gently leads readers through a careful consideration of what it means to make deep, loving connections—with our families, our friends, our colleagues, and our world. In a day when there is so much incivility in public speech, his words are a breath of fresh air, as calming as a warm summer breeze.

Dr. William G. Hoy, FT Clinical Professor of Medical Humanities Baylor University

Mark Anthony has written a book that is so unique, you will never read another like it. He’s a funeral director. But it’s not a book about “My life within the funeral profession,” or “Behind the scenes in the funeral business,” or even his musings on how he copes with his profession. The title says it well. It’s about living and dying.

This is a clear and direct exposition of what he’s come to believe about life during this exceptional, eyes-wide-open stream of experience in dealing with death. The intensity of it has drawn him in to the roots and branches of our families, our strengths and weaknesses, our days of clarity, our nights of blindness. He has found interest and learning in unexpected places, and brings them to our attention. And he shows us important differences in the way we live and die. He states his conclusions, too.

Bob Cannan CEO, Eagle Productivity Solutions http://eagleproductivity.com

This book is a meeting place of science and theology, traditional culture and recent innovations, religious rituals and emotional need. But it is, first and foremost, a personal testimony offered in compelling story. It is Mark Anthony’s story, and his ruminations about life, loss, rituals surrounding death, and the emotional connections that build and support human community Readers from all walks of life will be enriched, and communities will be strengthened, and healing of the bereaved will take place because Mark Anthony has chosen to tell his story.

 

W. Kenneth Williams, retired pastor, First Baptist Church of Rochester, NY, and Chaplain Emeritus, Brighton Fire Department, Brighton, NY. Williams has served as grief counselor in pastoral practice and as critical incident stress management consultant for emergency services. He resides in Durham, North Carolina.