Although much has been written about the ageing process, little has been written by one who is actually experiencing the process of dying. These questions are answered by the 92-year-old Harlan Carl Scheffler, who reflected on them in two essays written just before he passed away in April 2014.

In his first essay Scheffler takes a humorous look at the interval between becoming aged and dying, a time, he says that can be most rewarding. It is a time when we can review our lives and can learn what others have experienced through their span of years — and it can be most enjoyable and enlightening to family and friends.

His second essay examines the evidence for life’s immortality; it is treated as the natural adjunct, the extension and expansion of the initial phase of our lives, not the end. Surprisingly, he discovers that employing the light shed by today’s technologies, we are assured that death truly is impossible.