WE ALL KNOW HOW THIS ENDS
ANNA LYONS & LOUISE WINTER
� 2021 Green Tree / Bloomsbury
$20.00 / $26.99 Canada
304 pages

Imagine leaving work one night this week. For good.

No more 9-to-5s, no more waiting for that important document or email. No more Mondays, managers, or meetings — because you'll be dead and you won't sweat those things anymore. Everybody dies and so will you.

And in We All Know How This Ends by Anna Lyons and Louise Winter, can we talk about it?

We should, because, according to Lyons and Winter, we don't talk about death nearly enough, and certainly not in the right way. We skitter around the subject, using euphemisms, trying to be polite, when the truth is that nobody "lost their battle" or "just gave up" or "passed away."

Nope. Someone died.

There's no shame in it, say the authors, and to make sure, they joined forces several years ago. Lyons is an end-of-life doula, and Winter is "a progressive funeral director," and together, they're the team behind Life. Death. Whatever, an organization to help people learn how to talk about dying, funerals, grief, death, and life.

An end-of-life doula is similar to a birth doula, but Lyons works at goodbyes, rather than hellos. She helps ensure that a person's last days of life are spent "living right up to their very last breath," and she offers support to the dying person's family and friends. She also helps people communicate better when someone is dying.

According to Winter, "a progressive funeral director" does what a regular funeral director does, but with "an unconventional approach" that helps families and friends to bid adieu to the deceased, in a way that makes the most sense to everyone involved. She encourages readers to ask questions and to personalize funerals for their loved ones, as well as for mourners.

And as to why she became a funeral director, she says, "I wanted to do something with my life. I didn't want something to do. This was it."

In a way, We All Know How This Ends is a bit of a mess. It's loosely organized into two halves —with a stress on loosely,— and you'll be very, very glad there's a table of contents. Add in a number of guest-authored chapters that feel somewhat commonsensical and repetitious, and you might be tempted to just pick and choose what you read. But that's what makes this book worth having.

The authors first explain what they do and how a reader can follow in their footsteps. From there, the advice fans out to the physical and the emotional, from how to choose where to die to deciding if you want to witness a cremation. The authors offer their counsel in a way that's calm but to the point, nontechnical but not disrespectful to a reader's senses.

Be aware that this book is informative, rather than soft-pillow-and-a-hug comforting. It's real, and it's straightforward, and if that's what'll make you feel better, or if you're looking for a new job, We All Know How This Ends will fit the bill.