Breve Aunque Perfectamente Humana - by Alua Arthur (Paperback)

About the Book

For her clients and everyone who has been inspired by her humanity, Alua Arthur is a friend at the end of the world. As our country's leading death doula, she's spreading a transformative message: thinking about your death--whether imminent or not--will breathe wild, new potential into your life. Warm, generous, and funny AF, Alua supports and helps manage end-of-life care on many levels. The business matters, medical directives, memorial planning; but also honoring the quiet moments, when monitors are beeping and loved ones have stepped out to get some air--or maybe not shown up at all--and her clients become deeply contemplative and want to talk. Aching, unfinished business often emerges. Alua has been present for thousands of these sacred moments--when regrets, fears, secret joys, hidden affairs, and dim realities are finally said aloud. When this happens, Alua focuses her attention at the pulsing center of her clients' anguish and creates space for them, and sometimes their loved ones, to find peace. This has had a profound effect on Alua, who was already no stranger to death's periphery. Her family fled a murderous coup d'état in Ghana in the 1980s. She has suffered major, debilitating depressions. And her dear friend and brother-in-law died of lymphoma. Advocating for him in his final months is what led Alua to her life's calling. She knows firsthand the power of bearing witness and telling the truth about life's painful complexities, because they do not disappear when you look the other way. They wait for you. Briefly Perfectly Human is a life-changing, soul-gathering debut, by a writer whose empathy, tenderness, and wisdom shimmers on the page. Alua Arthur combines intimate storytelling with a passionate appeal for loving, courageous end-of-life care--what she calls "death embrace." Hers is a powerful testament to getting in touch with something deeper in our lives, by embracing the fact of our own mortality. "Hold that truth in your mind," Alua says, "and wondrous things will begin to grow around it."

About the Author

As the most visible death doula working in America today, Alua Arthur is a New York Times Bestselling author, a seeker, a "recovering" attorney, and the founder of Going with Grace, a death doula training and end-of-life planning organization. She has spent thousands of hours with folks as they contemplate their mortality when regrets, secret joys, hidden affairs, and dim realities are finally revealed aloud. Her TED Talk titled, "Why thinking about death helps you live a better life" went online in July 2023, and has already received 1.5 million views. A frequent guest on TV and radio, Alua has been featured on CBS's The Doctors and in Disney's "Limitless" docu-series with Chris Hemsworth, as well as in national print media outlets, such as Vogue, InStyle, the Los Angeles Times, The Cut, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. Alua's journey to death work started when her family fled a murderous coup d'etat in Ghana in the '80s - a time of chaos and fear that dramatically impacted her life and influenced her restless, peripatetic spirit. Every aspect of Alua's fascinating life comes together in Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life By Getting Real About The End, her raw, no holds barred, honest, and frequently hilarious New York Times Bestselling Memoir poetically crafted to share her powerful message with people all around the world. Her story is a deeply soul-transformative story that encourages us to think about the often-taboo subject of our own mortality - and how embracing this reality can help us lead better, more fulfilling lives.