Wellfleet Public Library

Presented by the Lily House

For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 in Truro. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to Cape Cod Hospital by ambulance. As blackness encroached, he was visited by his dead father, inviting Junger to join him. "It's okay," his father said "There's nothing to be scared of. I'll take care of you." That was the last thing Junger remembered until he came to the next day when he was told he had suffered a ruptured aneurysm that he should not have survived. This experience spurred Junger-a confirmed atheist raised by his physicist father to respect the empirical-to undertake a scientific, philosophical, and deeply personal examination of mortality and what happens after we die. In My Time of Dying is part medical drama, part searing autobiography, and part national inquiry into the ultimate unknowable mystery.

Led by Kim Crawford, board member of the The Lily House and Senior Minister Emerita of Arlington Street Church (UU), Boston.