Making Friends with Death: Why do we die? What will happen after I die? How do I deal with my grief over someone else¹s death? These are difficult but universal questions. Death cannot be avoided. Indeed, each of us will be successful in achieving it, yet it remains an enormous mystery. We may want to turn away from it, not talk about it, and pretend it does not walk among us. Jane Hughes Gignoux points out, "We have whole industries designed to pretend that we are never going to die. They promise us we are never going to get old. We have lots of choices: where we live, what we do, who our friends are. But, we have no choice as to whether or not we are going to die. It is a bizarre obsession pretending that we are not going to die." How will making friends with death inform our lives? Gignoux invites us to see into this great mystery as we relate to a friend. She has assembled together stories that people have been telling one another over many centuries about the mysteries of life, death and beyond. Gignoux is a counselor in stress management and play therapist with the HIV pediatric patients at Harlem Hospital in New York City and is the author of Some Folk Say: Stories of Life, Death and Beyond. Hosted by Justine Willis Toms.