{"product_id":"the-last-caravan-the-power-of-community-at-the-end-of-life-paperback-1","title":"The Last Caravan: The Power of Community at the End of Life - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eAnna Byrne\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAuthor Anna Byrne's close friend Mary Morgan spent her life looking for community. As a youth, the pain of Mary's mother's death is made more difficult by her family's silent grief, financial problems and disapproval of her identity as a lesbian. At 17, Mary leaves her troubled home in Toronto to live among the Guna peoples of Panama-- an adventure that ignites four decades of social justice work in war-torn countries around the globe. Flying kites with Bedouin children, smoking with Bosnian men, and resisting the Guatemalan Civil War alongside Maya women offers Mary a powerful salve for her yearning to belong: Chosen family-- communities based on mutual values and support. When faced with a terminal diagnosis while living in a remote British Columbian town with few resources, Mary brings the heart of her life's work-- the power of ordinary people to effect change-- to bear on her dying. In addition to Anna, she asks two other friends-- Jules, and Laurie-- to be her \" dying team\" and help her to die at home. Over 16 months, until her death with Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID), the team embarks on a profound experiment to curate Mary's vision of a death steeped in beauty, ceremony, and practical support through building a casket, hosting a home vigil, and transporting her body for a green burial. The journey to bring tenderness and creativity to one person's suffering emerges as an antidote to the urgency, scarcity, and loneliness that seek to define our lives-- and deaths. Anna Byrne's The Last Caravan offers a new paradigm for deathcare by returning it to the hands of the community.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eA cancer diagnosis at age 32 shaped Anna Byrne's understanding of dying. As a catalyst for human connection, it also led to over a decade of work as an end-of-life educator, speaker and author. Her memoir, Seven Year Summer-- a finalist in the Whistler Independent Book Awards-- is used as a training tool in hospices; her writing has also appeared in qathet Living, Young Adult Cancer Canada, and Feminism and Religion: How Faiths View Women and Their Rights (Praeger, 2021). Byrne holds degrees in Gerontology, Psychology, Education, and Theology, with a thesis on Medical Assistance in Dying.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 240\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.71 x 9.01 x 6.01 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e August 20, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48445106749661,"sku":"9781773861821","price":24.62,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/9867\/8237\/files\/ai6ltHfi6w9781773861821_931e06e2-21d4-4748-9e77-bd70e0f75d35.webp?v=1787760271","url":"https:\/\/handfulofbooks.com\/products\/the-last-caravan-the-power-of-community-at-the-end-of-life-paperback-1","provider":"Handful of Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}