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"In the final days of dying, in those last months when death is imminent, you may not think there is anything to help you. There is. That is why I am recommending that you put this book on your bookshelf now. It will be there when you need it, and you will.  Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying  was written by two hospice nurses, Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley. Angels on this plane, hospice nurses. If you have worked with them, you know. While a loved one is dying, they often speak a different, symbolic language. We sit beside their beds, holding their hands, helping them sip water from a straw and try to understand. Sometimes we do; sometimes we don&amp;#039;t. It is frustrating to our loved one, explaining again and again and again about the balloons and white drainpipes and cleaning up the third floor.  Final Gifts  addresses this issue \u2014 the sudden bilingual aspect that falls upon a home and the anguish that comes along with it. It helps with interpretation, with conversation, listening and understanding. It helps your loved one feel safe and heard, and you satisfied you were able to provide some of that. By the way, the third floor? That is what my father talked about and talked about, as my mother and I assured him that we had cleaned it spectacularly. Many big garbage bags. We had no third floor. Then Susan, our hospice nurse, called me one Monday. She had been in church the day before and heard a sermon relating life to a house. The third floor represents the soul and the spirit, she told me. Another gift, when you think there are none. D.G. Fulford is the author of Designated Daughter: The Bonus Years with Mom, written with her mother Phyllis Greene. She is also the co-founder of TheRememberingSite.org. You can find her at DGFulford.com. Photo credit: Marcia Smilack "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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