Great masters of many traditions have taught us that we must die before we die if we wish to truly live. In her new memoir Heartwood: The Art of Living with the End in Mind (Flatiron Books, Macmillan, May 2021), Barbara Becker sets off on a journey to explore this truth like a koan, with all of her heart.

From the cemetery at Wounded Knee with the Zen Peacemakers to working with genocide survivors from Rwanda, from the busy hospice floor at Bellevue Hospital in New York City to the bedside of her parents, dying weeks apart, Barbara’s story is like a love letter to a death-shy world.