Encountering the Edge: What People Told Me Before They Died

Unencumbered by religious agendas and pat answers,Encountering the Edge satisfies one's curiosity concerning what people believe in, shrug their shoulders at, laugh at, and most care about as they face Act 3,Scene 3, of their lives. Readers will join Hospice Chaplain Kaplan as she visits her patients and their family members, and share her sense of adventure and openness to the experience. The author also reveals the inner workings of a hospice agency from a chaplain’s viewpoint both on the road and in the office. Readers will encounter odd, poignant, revealing, and even amusing characters, such as a countercultural type who always greeted Kaplan with “Hey, doll!” and a World War Two veteran who beat the odds and left hospice to live well for over a year. Kaplan also illuminates what patients think will happen in the hereafter, as well as her own path and deeper motivations for entering this career. In the last chapter, Kaplan explores what it would be like to be a hospice patient herself, talking with a seasoned chaplain who gently lets her express her beliefs, regrets, sources of meaning, and hopes. Encountering the Edge centers on this forbidding topic with the aim of allowing readers to feel safe in facing this unknown territory.