I Know How I Want to Die

For more than forty years, John L. Wheeler told this story aloud. Again and again, people told him the same thing: You should write that down.

I Know How I Want to Die is the written form of that story-a deeply personal account of faith, family, and the strange and unforgettable way death came to three men John loved.

At the heart of the book are John's father and two of his uncles, each of whom, in his own way, spoke of his coming death shortly before it occurred. One declared how he wanted to die-and did exactly that the very next day. Another asked God to let him die that night-and did. John's father, after hours of final conversation, said he was ready to die and was gone within a day.

These events are not presented as spectacle or superstition. They are told as they were lived: within a family shaped by Christian faith, pastoral ministry, suffering, memory, and an unshaken confidence in the providence of God.

This is not a book about technique, sentiment, or romanticized dying. It is a testimony to a legacy of faith so deeply rooted that death itself was faced without terror. Along the way, the story gathers family history, vivid remembrance, and theological reflection into an account of why death need not have the final word.

It is a story about death.

But even more, it is a story about why death need not be feared