The future is unknowable, yet our planning for it gives us hope for ourselves and our loved ones. There are a number of steps you can take to make our survivors' lives easier with our passing. Some are legal and financial issues which need to be handled by knowledgeable professionals.

Have you ever wished that you could be somebody else? Someone completely different? In a brand-new set of more favorable circumstances? Throw off your troubled (or even your nondescript) current life? That's just how Paul Marchildon, in 1963, San Antonio, Texas, felt-when everything was closing in on him. His marriage was quickly unraveling! His modest house was under foreclosure! And his car was about to be repossessed! In addition, he faced an impossible, romantic, situation-vis-a-vis a woman with whom he'd once worked. Paul was sorely tempted to steal $1,000 from his employer! He struggled to resist! Then, when his wife announced that she was taking his four children-and moving in with her parents some 350 miles away-he took the money! And ran! In his flight, Paul was intercepted by an angel-spokesman for a small group of heavenly beings! The angel offered to give him a new body, a new voice, a new name-and to set him up in a beautiful condo, on the beautiful Pacific Ocean beach, in beautiful Oregon. More than a thousand miles from his untenable situation. There was just one highly problematic difficulty: the "celestial deal" consisted of those few angels faking Paul's death! He'd turn up as having died in an automobile crash! Truly, this would be a brand-new beginning! The troubled man accepted! It was only after he had become the younger-and far more handsome- Taylor Young, that he begins worrying about those he'd left behind! His "widow" ran off with some "snake oil" salesman, who won her over with a few lavish gifts. She joined a cult! That left the children-all of whom Paul/Taylor missed terribly-in the hands of their grandparents. Grandma was dangerously harried-and Grandpa hated having the responsibility of having to raise kids that were not his own! Further, there was another woman-one with whom Paul had had a romantic relationship. She was terribly upset by his "running out." She is completely shattered-to learn of his "death." Paul had also been close to her two children. None of this was helping! It was only after he'd assumed his new lifestyle that the now-Taylor slowly learned of the many and varied difficulties confronting all these people from his past. The ones he'd left behind. Obviously, he became more and more concerned about them! So he strived to do something-to do whatever he can-about their troubling circumstances. The effect that his sudden journey back to Texas had on the two women-with whom he'd formed a relationship in Oregon-only added to his rapidly accumulating difficulties. Trust me! A "new beginning" is not always what it would seem to be!

“A documentary filmmaker and daughter of the late, great New York Times columnist David Carr celebrates and wrestles with her father’s legacy in a raw, redemptive memoir.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “A breathtaking read . . . a testimony equal parts love and candor. David would have had it no other way.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates, bestselling author of Between the World and Me NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY GLAMOUR AND MARIE CLAIRE Dad: What will set you apart is not talent but will and a certain kind of humility. A willingness to let the world show you things that you play back as you grow as an artist. Talent is cheap. Me: OK I will ponder these things. I am a Carr. Dad: That should matter quite a bit, actually not the name but the guts of what that name means. A celebrated journalist, bestselling author (The Night of the Gun), and recovering addict, David Carr was in the prime of his career when he suffered a fatal collapse in the newsroom of The New York Times in 2015. Shattered by his death, his daughter Erin Lee Carr, at age twenty-seven an up-and-coming documentary filmmaker, began combing through the entirety of their shared correspondence—1,936 items in total—in search of comfort and support. What started as an exercise in grief quickly grew into an active investigation: Did her father’s writings contain the answers to the question of how to move forward in life and work without her biggest champion by her side? How could she fill the space left behind by a man who had come to embody journalistic integrity, rigor, and hard reporting, whose mentorship meant everything not just to her but to the many who served alongside him? All That You Leave Behind is a poignant coming-of-age story that offers a raw and honest glimpse into the multilayered relationship between a daughter and a father. Through this lens, Erin comes to understand her own workplace missteps, existential crises, and relationship fails. While daughter and father bond over their mutual addictions and challenges with sobriety, it is their powerful sense of work and family that comes to ultimately define them. This unique combination of Erin Lee Carr’s earnest prose and her father’s meaningful words offers a compelling read that shows us what it means to be vulnerable and lost, supported and found. It is a window into love, with all of its fierceness and frustrations. “Thank you, Erin, for this beautiful book. Now I am going to steal all of your father’s remarkable advice and tell my kids I thought of it.”—Judd Apatow

Success Is What You Leave Behind: Fostering Leadership and Innovation reveals the 14 proven practices that Dr. Cato T. Laurencin has come to rely upon in building his distinguished career as a renowned orthopedic surgeon, biomedical engineer, educator and mentor. Writing with a personal voice, Dr. Laurencin shares stories from his own experiences to reflect the principles he has learned and how one can utilize them in their own career. Among other topics, he discusses how to be a leader, handling challenging moments, fostering creativity and innovation, using skills and successes to help others, and what he's learned from some of the giants in the world of the life sciences and medicine. Shows effective methods for elevating the reader's own capabilities and mentoring others to do the same Offers guidance on how to consider hurdles and approach them so that you can move forward Features insights on fostering innovative ideas and driving change to produce new outcomes

They bear labels instead of names—noncombatant, unintended victim, collateral damage. Theirs are the blurred faces and forms seen in news footage shot from a moving vehicle. And when soldiers, media, and profiteers move on to the next conflict, they stay behind to cope amid the wreckage. They have stories to tell to anyone who will pause long enough to hear them. In What Wars Leave Behind, J. Malcolm Garcia reveals the people and pain behind the statistics. He writes about impoverished families scraping by in Cairo’s city of the dead, ordinary Syrians pretending all is well as shells explode around them, and others caught in conflicts that rage long after the cameramen have packed up and gone away. Garcia describes his travels in some of the world’s hotspots in Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. In a series of personal travel essays that read like short stories, he exposes the endless messiness of war and the failings of good intentions, and he traces their impact on the lives of natives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Kosovo, Chad, and Syria. He discovers amazing resilience among people who must struggle just to survive each day. Garcia gives readers the sort of gritty detail learned from immersing himself in other cultures. He eats the food, drinks the tea, and endures the oppressive heat. These are the stories of how a middle-class guy from the Midwest with a social work degree learned to experience and embrace the cultures of Third World countries in conflict—and lived to tell the tale.

This open access book focuses on a particular but significant topic in the social sciences: the concepts of “footprint” and “trace”. It associates these concepts with hotly debated topics such as surveillance capitalism and knowledge society. The editors and authors discuss the concept footprints and traces as unintended by-products of other (differently focused and oriented) actions that remain empirically imprinted in virtual and real spaces. The volume therefore opens new scenarios for social theory and applied social research in asking what the stakes, risks and potential of this approach are. It systematically raises and addresses these questions within a consistent framework, bringing together a heterogeneous group of international social scientists. Given the multifaceted objectives involved in exploring footprints and traces, the volume discusses heuristic aspects and ethical dimensions, scientific analyses and political considerations, empirical perspectives and theoretical foundations. At the same time, it brings together perspectives from cultural analysis and social theory, communication and Internet studies, big-data informed research and computational social science. This innovative volume is of interest to a broad interdisciplinary readership: sociologists, communication researchers, Internet scholars, anthropologists, cognitive and behavioral scientists, historians, and epistemologists, among others.

'A powerful story ... Walsh shows an innate understanding of people's lives, and the emotional truths that underpin them' Kathleen MacMahon It hadn't been Rosie's idea - a 'quaint' wedding at her childhood home in the Irish countryside. Nevertheless she finds herself back in Monasterard after a decade away, with her American fiancé on her arm and a smile fixed to her face. As expected, the welcome from her siblings isn't exactly warm. Mary-Pat, the one who practically raised Rosie, is avoiding her. June is preoccupied with maintaining the illusion of her perfect family. And Pius, who still counts the years since their mother left, is hiding from the world. Each of them is struggling with the weight of things unsaid. In the end, it's their father who, on the day of Rosie's wedding, exposes what has remained hidden for so long. And as the O'Connor siblings piece together the secrets at the heart of their family, they begin to forgive the woman who abandoned them all those years ago.

Who helps in situations of forced displacement? How and why do they get involved? In Helping Familiar Strangers, Louise Olliff focuses on one type of humanitarian group, refugee diaspora organizations (RDOs), to explore the complicated impulses, practices, and relationships between these activists and the "familiar strangers" they try to help. By documenting findings from ethnographic research and interviews with resettled and displaced persons, RDO representatives, and humanitarian professionals in Australia, Switzerland, Thailand, and Indonesia, Olliff reveals that former refugees are actively involved in helping people in situations of forced displacement and that individuals with lived experience of forced displacement have valuable knowledge, skills, and networks that can be drawn on in times of humanitarian crisis. We live in a world where humanitarians have varying motivations, capacities, and ways of helping those in need, and Helping Familiar Strangers confirms that RDOs and similar groups are an important part of the tapestry of care that people turn to when seeking protection far from home.

How I Live Now meets Exodus – a startling YA dystopia that imagines London as the epicentre of the refugee crisis, from critically acclaimed author Clare Furniss. Civil unrest in London has reached an all-time high after years of a growing authoritarian regime, and it’s no longer safe for Clem and her half-sister Billie in the city. Clem tells of their treacherous journey to Scotland, by road and then by sea, fleeing with nothing but a notebook filled with stories and memories of home. But is there something Clem's not saying? And how will this journey – and the sisters’ story – end? With the start of a new life? Or a mirror held up to the past? PRAISE FOR THE THINGS WE LEAVE BEHIND: ‘A frighteningly remarkable, relevant and moving novel, told gently and with impeccable style. Clare Furniss is one of the very best writers for young people and this new novel is her finest yet. I loved it.’ Sarah Crossan, author of Moonrise 'Gripping and heart-wrenching, the story has a tragic denouement that is almost too painful to read, but Furniss’ exquisite writing carries the reader through.' The Bookseller I couldn't stop reading The Things We Leave Behind, I was totally immersed, as if I was a book-mad teenager again. I was moved and engrossed. Devastating and unsparing but full of hope and love too. It was a privilege to read it. - Candy Gourlay This book is exceptional. Years and Years meets The End We Start From for teenagers. Should be on every secondary set text list. - Joanna Nadin SO good - gripping, moving, tense, twisty and very, very necessary. In Clare’s capable hands it all felt so utterly real and terrifyingly possible I got the chills. - Lisa Williamson Such moving, thought-provoking, compelling story-telling. Wonderful characters. Utterly convincing. I loved it. - Julia Green PRAISE FOR CLARE FURNISS: ‘Lingers in the mind long after the final word has been read’ Malorie Blackman, author of Noughts & Crosses ‘Absolutely gorgeous, heartfelt and incredibly enjoyable’ Robin Stevens, author of the Murder Most Unladylike series ‘Funny, sharply observed, shocking and wonderful’ Sunday Times ‘A beautifully executed story . . . gloriously funny, deeply emotional and a triumph’ Daily Mail ‘Beautifully written’ Stylist PRAISE FOR CLARE FURNISS: ‘Lingers in the mind long after the final word has been read’ Malorie Blackman, author of Noughts & Crosses ‘Absolutely gorgeous, heartfelt and incredibly enjoyable’ Robin Stevens, author of the Murder Most Unladylike series ‘Funny, sharply observed, shocking and wonderful’ Sunday Times ‘A beautifully executed story . . . gloriously funny, deeply emotional and a triumph’ Daily Mail ‘Beautifully written’ Stylist

Within our lives we feel happiness, sorrow and pain, sometimes even all at once. There are many times when we do not understand the way that we feel. There are times when we want to strengthen the relationships in the lives that we live but pride is what we still feel. Sometimes we are breaking apart even when it is very painful in our hearts. Sometimes we would whether live with misery than reconcile with the ones that we love. There will always be mistakes made in the lives that we live. We need to work pass the problems in our lives to find a solution. I know that we can still feel hurt but we can overcome the feeling when we look deeply into our hearts. There will always be a love that we will feel for the ones that we love. Accepting this is the one true constant that can strengthen our relationships. I hope that with the reading of this poetry you will be given an insight. We do not live in a perfect world, but we are a diamond or a pearl. We are all special in our own ways. We all deserve to be loved every day.