Enduring Love: Inspiring Stories of Love and Wisdom at the End of Life (Humankind Project) - Softcover

"Enduring Love speaks the great truth. Only love gives every life meaning, is immortal, and provides the bridge between the land of the living and the dead. Landberg's hospice portraits bridge the gap. Hospices which enable love transform the dying process and enrich lives. My father died laughing because of the love he felt from his wife and family. A beautiful life affirming book." --Bernie Siegel, best selling author of Love, Medicine, & Miracles "Enduring Love is a compelling glimpse into the world of the dying, their families and the professional caregiver. Mary Landberg artistically combines poignant photography with captivating stories and in doing so, honors the wisdom of those who have traveled the path of serious illness. As a professional caregiver I found this book validating, as a family member I found it enlightening, and as a pilgrim in an impermanent life I found it inspiring." --Jennifer Gentry ANP BC, GNP, ACHPN, FPCN, Nurse Practitioner, Duke Palliative Care and 2014 President, Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association Board of Directors "Enduring Love" by Mary Landberg is a heartfelt composition of words and pictures that shows us the gentle, sacred side of dying. In society today dying and death is viewed as a negative, a feared encounter we close our eyes to until life forces its experience upon us. Mary's photographs show us beauty and her words show us the natural, normal, unfolding process of life at its ending. Through sharing her stories and her personal thoughts she not only guides us but she helps ease the fears we bring to our final act of living." --Barbara Karnes, end of life educator and author of The Final Act of Living

As a hospice nurse and photographer, Mary Landberg has the honor to witness and capture in photographs the unwavering expression of love that endures between people living with terminal illness and their loved ones. She has had the privilege of bringing her camera into a most sacred and vulnerable time in peoples lives. The great similarity in the dying process regardless of economic status, age, or any cause or place of death is the way people lovingly touch each other. Love is what survives beyond the last breath; love is all that is left in the end. This is what Landberg strives to photograph. What sets Enduring Love apart from other hospice photography books is that the primary focus is not on the faces of hospice patients, but on their hands. The mystery of who belongs to the hands allows the hands to belong to anyone in the reader's life, perhaps offering a sense of comfort or completion. Each photograph is accompanied by a story, grand wisdom hospice patients and families offer us the readers. The reader will also find honest glimpses into hospice care, common family struggles, light-hearted moments in the face of death and opportunities for healing on many levels.