Through the Eyes of the Heart () von Dan Festa

This book is written as a memoir of 40-plus years of working with human experiences of death, grief, and bereavement. The stories are all similar but uniquely different; similar in the sense that they all relate to varying issues embedded in loss. They are different in how each of these losses occur. The author invites the reader into a world of overwhelming grief brimming with raw emotions. The stories are true and tackle the capricious and unpredictable nature of death in a society that seeks to avoid and overcome the reality of death. Most of the stories are told from the perspective of a hospital chaplain working with real people. While these stories are profoundly sad, the author invites the reader to search for and find snippets of hope through a recommitment to life and living--constantly holding before the reader the dialectic tension that exists between life and death.

The Rev. Dr. Dan Festa is presently pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Missouri. Festa served as chaplain and coordinator of bereavement services at Virginia Commonwealth University Health System. Throughout the last twenty-five years he has worked with several organ procurement agencies and has taught nationally and internationally on death, grief, and bereavement. Festa has published several research studies as well as stories on death, grief, dying, and bereavement.