Through personal observation and academic research, I discovered that the fear of death in North America has increased during the last century due to a lack of interaction with death. From this observation my senior design thesis became: to examine how contemporary Western funeral practices serve to disconnect the living from the full experience of mourning. Good Mourning Death grew out of this thesis. The objectives for this book became to expose how five cultures understand and deal with death in meaningful ways, and to encourage those feeling a disconnect from the process of death to begin talking, thinking, and taking actions every day in order to connect with death in meaningful ways. To achieve these objectives Good Mourning Death provides information on how five cultures mourn and activities that aid readers in making future death decisions.