How Planning My Death at 52 Helped Me Learn More About How I Wanted to Live

— As my health is markedly declining, I’ve made a list: places to see/go, things to do, things to no longer do

“I’m thinking more about living for the first time in…well, at least four years”

By S.C. Beckner

At the end of every year in the past, I anxiously waited to crack open my new daily planner for the coming new year so I could jot down resolutions. I like a clean slate.

Every year those resolutions tumbled to the bottom of my to-list before I’d finished humming “Auld Lang Syne.” Things like, be more disciplined/stop procrastinating, tackle my TBR stack/try a digital sabbatical, and cut out sugar/lose ten pounds/no more than one dessert a day, topped the list year after year.

This year, I’m Googling phrases like “Is an advance directive the same as a living will?” “Where is assisted suicide legal?” “What drugs are used in assisted suicides?” When I type the last question into Google, the first thing that comes up is the number “988” and encouragement for me to reach out for support.

My arm felt heavy, the muscles rippled beneath the skin and my finger strokes on the keyboard weren’t landing as efficiently as they once had.

I don’t have a solid diagnosis yet. Instead, I have a plethora of odds and ends symptoms, disorders, dysregulation, immunodeficiencies and viruses after I contracted a nasty respiratory illness that lasted for seven weeks at the end of 2019 after a return trip to the Midwest to visit family for the holidays.

The Downward Spiral

The downward spiral started with an episode of super ventricular tachycardia a week or so after I was “on the mend.” My resting heart rate hit 150 plus beats per minute which began a series of trips to the local emergency room, tests and procedures. That illness triggered a marked decline of my health and was likely the beginning of this chosen end that I’m facing now. 

But then, last March, three years after that first trip to the ER, I noticed weakness in my right forearm while I was working from home one afternoon. My arm felt heavy, the muscles rippled beneath the skin and my finger strokes on the keyboard weren’t landing as efficiently as they once had. Words were missing letters…Knoledge. Languge. Mariage. Muscles spasmed.

The next few months brought resting tremors, and trouble swallowing. My speech became sluggish in the evenings when I was most fatigued. I started to struggle with short-term memory, mixed up words in conversation, and it felt like words I used frequently had been stowed on shelves in my brain and I could no longer reach them.

I’m doing things like leaving the kitchen with the faucet running, burners on, and recently, I put a container of yogurt in the drawer with my Pyrex lids.

‘Maybe ALS’

In August, my rheumatologist referred me to a neurologist — my life inundated with ologists. Immunologist. Gastroenterologist. Rheumatologist. Neurologist. He suspected that rather than an autoimmune disease, a neuromuscular disorder was the root cause of many of my symptoms including the weakness, tremors and autonomic dysregulation which caused functions like heart rate, blood pressure and temperature to become unpredictable, and sometimes dangerous.

Now, after most physical exertions, like taking a mildly warm shower, my body temperature spikes to 102-104 degrees, my heart races to 130-150 plus beats per minute.

“Maybe ALS,” the rheumatologist said. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. A terminal diagnosis.

Thus far, ALS can’t be ruled out with certainty as a diagnosis, but it also hasn’t been confidently diagnosed at this point in the MRIs, EMGs and blood draws. I’m being referred to another neurologist for further evaluation. According to the ALS Therapy Development Institute, some patients initially receive a “suspected, possible, probable, or definite ALS” diagnosis as other disorders and diseases are ruled out.

I think in terms of quality of life, and regardless of which of those diagnoses the doctors land on, my decision to end my physical, cognitive and emotional suffering remains the same.

On paper, ALS is the worst-case scenario in terms of outcome with a life expectancy of two to five years depending on the progression of each individual patient. Best-case scenario, this myriad of symptoms, this failure of my fifty-two-year-old body, is that my faulty, gone-rogue immune system that has already attacked my other organs — lungs, liver and spleen — has started its assault on my brain causing inflammation and/or deterioration.

A Decision Made

This brain that I’ve filled with ten years of study in higher education, ideas for essays, books yet to be written, language, memories of my children, their children, my parents when we were all much younger — has been damaged. There is no way to know if there’s any hope of recovering what’s been lost. But now, I think in terms of quality of life, and regardless of which of those diagnoses the doctors land on, my decision to end my physical, cognitive and emotional suffering remains the same.

I haven’t officially told my family, many of those relationships are estranged/strained, and, even as a child, I oft communicated in writing. As a child, I asked my mother if she was mad at me on lined steno pages left on the kitchen table, asked her to check yes or no.

I’ve written letter after letter to my husband throughout our nearly-twenty-year marriage — in the beginning, letters of love and wanting, more recently, letters of request and reflection. I’m sorry you ended up with a sick wife.

I have expressed my frustration and fatigue with being sick for so long to some members of my family, said things like “This isn’t sustainable,” or “I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.” But they are of the mindset that I need to get out more, that I can somehow right the ship of my sick and fledgling body with positivity. Even my husband has talked to me about the power of “mind over matter.” Those are all different conversations.

On my worst days, I’m frequently utilizing my newly-purchased rollator after being humbled by several trips and a few falls.

Now, I have to try to take a short walk or do some sort of activity after every meal to help my stomach empty itself of its contents, lest the gastroparesis cause the food to stagnate and form a solid mass in my gut. On my worst days, I’m frequently utilizing my newly-purchased rollator after being humbled by several trips and a few falls. Some days, I struggle to feed myself and swallow food and drink, regardless of consistency.

While my brain and my body continue to weaken, I think about the trivial, everyday things like not being able to make and pour my own coffee, think about how my hands are no longer strong enough to hold one of my beloved coffee mugs that I’ve collected over the years from my children or from pottery-making friends.

I can no longer stand in the kitchen for extended periods while I make doughs and roll them into glazed and streusel-ed pastries or stir a pan of homemade hot fudge that I gift to friends and neighbors. I worry that my arms won’t hold my new granddaughter expected in the spring.

Leaning Into End-of-Life Plans

On a grander, more humiliating scale, I’ve wet myself more than once trying to maneuver my faltering, quivering body out of bed in the morning. As my speech slurs with fatigue and my word recall is failing, I think about the joy I’ve always found in oral communication — it’s how I connect with the world around me. I’m a storyteller, a teacher, a talker. The idea of losing these things that make me me is unbearable, as it is for anyone diagnosed with a debilitating and potentially terminal disease.

See a meteor shower. I checked this one off the list.

I am leaning into these end-of-life plans, engaging both the creative and Type A aspects of who I am. I am taking online art classes, learning to sketch, to paint, trying to teach myself to knit while simultaneously writing my care plan, getting my “final wishes” down on paper. “Final Wishes” is such an odd statement. I imagine genies seduced from bottles and how you can’t “put the genie back” once it’s freed and am reminded of the permanence of my decision.

Making Lists

I don’t like the term “bucket list,” but I’ve been making one —well, part bucket list, part to-do list. In my mind, I’ve divided this into three parts: places to see/go, things to do, things to no longer do. The list has things like:

Places to see/go:
1. See the northern lights in Maine, hike while I’m there.
2. See fall foliage somewhere in the northeast. One more time.
3. Visit another country. I’ve settled on Algonquin Park in Canada’s Ontario province. Stargaze, see the northern lights from there too.

Things to do:
1. Go camping. Sleep connected to the earth.
2. See a meteor shower. I checked this one off the list.
3. Plant a garden.
4. Collect and compile recipes for my kids, make care packages for each one with sentimental items.
5. Finish/sell my book.
6. Write letters to loved ones. See loved ones.

Things to no longer do:
1. No more offering myself up to those who aren’t interested in genuine loving/considerate relationships.
2. No more hating myself for the past. I want to love the life I lived, flawed as it was in many ways.
3. No more finishing books that I don’t like.

It’s been four years now, counting that lengthy viral illness. I’m tired. I reached the decision to end my suffering after much thought and consideration. I don’t know exactly when, but I’m close to settling on an assisted end-of-life plan.

But now, instead of wondering how my disease/s and decompensation will progress, worrying about the logistics of needing a greater level of care, I’m thinking more about living for the first time in…well, at least four years, maybe more. I’m seeking joy, love and kindness and looking for everyday opportunities to pour those things back out into the world around me.

Some days, I’m successful and other days, I’m not. I’m not a gracious sick person. But in all of this, I’m grateful that in planning for my death, I’ve finally learned what’s important to me…finally learned how to live.

Complete Article HERE!

The Art of Dying

— Overcoming Our Fear of Death

Enduring, accepting, and embracing the inevitability of one of mankind’s greatest fears.

By Jocelyn Tatum

On my desk at home, I have a true-to-life-sized concrete sculpture of a skull with little porcelain bluebirds resting on its mouth, ears, eyes, and one on its crown. I found it at ArtsGoggle in Fort Worth 13 years ago when the local arts festival was just starting out. I gravitated toward it because it reminded me how fleeting and fragile life can be. The birds, to me, represented the creativity that comes forth in the face of our finitude. The idea was that this mortal reminder would help me get past writer’s block. After all, as a journalist, these stories are not my own. They are your stories. I am merely the vessel who delivers them using my passion and acute sensitivity to humanity. And I borrowed this idea from 14th-century monks who kept skulls on their desks as a reminder of their mortality as they wrote their philosophical dissertations, so this idea wasn’t new. “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” Sounds familiar, right? This symbol of death on my desk was a reminder to face my fears head on, and that I am just passing through this world, adding my thread to the massive tapestry that is the story of all us.

I have always thought of myself as a pilgrim. Just passing through. The joys in life like my son, friendships, or romantic partners are merely finite gifts lent to me from the universe, never mine to keep or clutch. I have found that the pain is in the clinging to life or avoidance thereof, whether it is my own or another’s. Peace and serenity lie somewhere in the middle. Everything temporal, everything passing. Life doesn’t have to be so serious, and I think my journey exploring my own non-imminent death has reminded me of this. When achieved, this allows me to live with a free spirit and detachment to the things that weigh me down. And as things have gotten heavier for me lately with my father starting palliative care for his cancer and the loss of a great love in a breakup, I decided it was time to stare death and grief boldly in the face.

Two Fort Worth women just launched their business, The Art of Dying, in January 2023 after completing their death doula training. When I came across their Instagram (@theartofdyingfw), I became curious. Very curious. So, I kept digging. It turns out that a death doula is like a birth doula but assists with the process of dying. They are an end-of-life companion who can guide the dying, whether that is connecting them to a number of resources or inspiring ideas for how to celebrate the life they have left. “The Art of Dying [is a] small collective that offers support, celebration, and companionship to individuals and their loved ones through the end of life.” They offer services for those who have a terminal diagnosis or those who want to plan early in life and are non-imminent.

These end-of-life practices have been steadily growing since the pandemic, according to Alvin Harmon, the head of the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance on an NPR news segment that aired Jan. 17. “How people died, that was what became important, having that safe space, that whole space, people dying in a manner that felt safe to them and was important to them,” Harmon said on air. Any little dignity people had left when dying was stripped of the dying during the isolating loss of COVID-19. This phenomenon led Fort Worth’s Lacy Buynak to get her death doula training. She lost her grandmother during the pandemic.

“As I was grieving her death, I was having this huge collective grief for all of these people who didn’t get that,” she says as tears form in the corners of her eyes. “I started thinking that that has got to be one of the worst ways to go.” She got to say goodbye to her one last time before she died but realized so many others did not have this experience.

Now business partners in all thing’s death, Buynak and Taykor Bell had been friends since attending school together in 2001. Twenty years later, in April 2021, Buynak called Bell to catch up. They had been talking about something else when Buynak said, “I did a crazy thing. I signed up for a training program to be a death doula.” She remembers getting a “holy-shit, so-did-I”-type of response.

The two had been keeping an ear on the heartbeat of death for years as a separate fascination while a parallel nationwide phenomenon of making death more palatable, eco-friendly, meaningful, and even enjoyable was disrupting the $20 billion funeral industry, which celebrity mortician death advocate Caitlin Doughty argues exploits people’s grief and turns it into a profit. After their own experience with death, Buynak and Bell saw a need to provide a comprehensive and holistic service in Fort Worth that also educates the community one death at a time. “We want to hold space for people in those moments. Raising awareness for collectivism, the practice or principle of giving a group priority over an individual, for being there for people,” Bell says.

Bell had her first existential crisis in grade school. She thought about dying and going to heaven and thought, “That is forever.” Her mind kept seeing “road barriers” to this thought of permanence, and anything past that scared her (to death). She couldn’t understand forever. For her, something so big and unknown brought up this debilitating fear. She knew then that death would be her biggest teacher, and her training for this vocation is her life experience. Not only has she read many books over her 40 years alive, but she was able to be there for her mother as she was dying in a way that she would want someone to be there for her. It occurred to her that many people die in the most isolated and sterile way in the U.S. even before the pandemic.

“The vision is to put ourselves out of business to remind our culture to do this for each other. This is a business needed more than ever. There are so many ways people can feel vulnerable and alone, and death is when that is most poignant,” Bell says.

This year marks the 10th year since Bell’s mother died of adrenal cancer. The story gave me chills. When Bell decided to leave her current career, she looked at the amount of money her mother left her, an account she was hesitant to touch because it was the last lifeline to her mom, and it was the exact amount she needed to get her death doula training. Then Buynak called.

DeathShadowFIN.jpg Illustrations by Brandon Hayman[/caption]

My Journey

I met with Bell and Buynak for sparkling tea at Leaves Book and Tea Shop in Fort Worth’s SoMa district. They had a big biodegradable binder waiting for me on the table with their logo on the front. Page 1: “In this binder, you will find a comprehensive list of legal documents to gather, logistics and arrangements to consider, as well as various comfort and care services you may be interested in learning more about.”

Section 1, “Legal: Advance Directive, Durable Power of Attorney, Last Will and Testimony.” This is definitely the least enjoyable part of the process. I went to the websites, which was about what I expected from government sites. Then I had to download a bunch of PDFs to print, fill them out, and then take them to be notarized. Then file them. Bell recommended using RocketLawyer (not a shameless plug) unless you have some massive estate to work through.

Not going to lie, this part made me feel uncomfortable. Itchy. It asks a lot of questions that I really don’t feel like I know the answers to yet. And when it got to the body disposition authorization that included some subtext about whether your body remains are acceptable if you want to donate it to science, I had to step away and get some fresh air. “So you’re saying my body could be rejected even after I die?” I thought.

“We want people 40 and younger to get their [act] together. It can be sad, confusing, and beautiful,” Bell told me regarding the Art of Preplanning, a service they offer to those who get their affairs in order even if death isn’t imminent.

Well, I do not have my act together. And I am not going to lie, this has brought up some feelings. So, I decide once more to procrastinate on the legal paperwork, which Bell and Buynak have both said I need to knock out first because something can happen to us at any moment. Digging into the resistance, I redirected my efforts into research about how to overcome this fear. What I found brought me peace beyond what I could have ever expected.

Overcoming Fears

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek,” said 20th century author Joseph Campbell.The New York Times reported a phenomenon in an article titled “South Koreans, Seeking a New Zest for Life, Experience Their Own Funerals” where people choose to face their mortality. “After an instructional lecture and video, participants are led into a dimly lit hall decorated with chrysanthemums, where they sit, often tearfully, beside caskets and write their last testaments. Then they put on burial shrouds and lie down in the coffins,” the article reports. What surprised me is many participants photographed were young and healthy with no end in sight, but some had a terminal illness and wanted to prepare while others struggled with suicidal thoughts and wanted to put those to rest. They reported emerging from their mock funerals and meditations around death with a new and hopeful perspective on life.

Buddhist monks contemplate images of decaying bodies to unlock the door living in the present and letting go of fears. “It makes disciples aware of the transitory nature of their own physical lives and stimulates a realignment between momentary desires and existential goals. In other words, it makes one ask, ‘Am I making the right use of my scarce and precious life?’” Arthur C. Brooks wrote in an op-ed piece for the NYT.

Guided meditations on mortality such as this can be one of many life-affirming activities that can give us a new take on life, according to the resourceful website orderofthegooddeath.com. The website is an endless resource for all things death with everything from how to have conversations about it to how to have an affordable and intimate funeral at home. It was created by YouTube star, mortician, former cremator, and best-selling author of the memoir Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory, Caitlin Doughty. In an interview on a segment on “CBS Sunday Morning,” Doughty says, “Americans need to think more about end-of-life rituals, instead of keeping death at a distance.” Her advocacy around changing the way we die and think about death has started a movement across the country. “They are just of the belief that the more we talk about it openly and honestly, the less terrifying it needs to be,” the “CBS Sunday Morning” reporter narrates. Doughty’s more recent book, From Here to Eternity, illustrates how death is handled in a more meaningful and intimate way in cultures across the world. What does it mean to have a good death? Is it not to be so separated and detached from the process, to stop looking away?

Doughty even offers a course, complete with videos, lessons, and guided meditations for the price of $195, called Mortal that gives patrons the tools for facing death. Lessons with titles like, “I create my own meaning,” “I meet my true self on my deathbed,” and “There are parts of my death I can control,” help people better cope.

It made me think, why do we wait until the end to start celebrating life? Why do we wait until we are at our rock bottom, when life strips us of everything that we think validates us as humans, to start living in the way we were always meant to?

Ironically, facing death and working with death doulas like Matus and Buynak helped me release the inhibiting fear of loss and to rethink the way I live. And I have been able to show up differently around my father’s terminal cancer. I don’t need to look away, nor do I need to fix it. I can just be with him in it. It puts me at ease to know there is a slew of tools and support out there.

When I was little, I had a fear of being eaten by a monster and dying. I would lie in bed each night staring at the closed closet door waiting for it to open at any time to claim my life. One night, I had the thought, “What is actually in there?” I got up and looked. Nothing was in there, and I started sleeping through the night again. Peace ensued, and a nascent lesson was learned — the pain was in the resistance, the looking away.

American Poet Andrea Gibson’s YouTube video went viral after she famously shared her story about how her cancer diagnosis transformed her lifelong debilitating fear of death into “boundless bliss.” Once she learned that her whole torso was filled with masses, she said she felt her heart immediately begin to open up. She now walked through the world realizing that she may not be here tomorrow, which pushed her deep into the present moment. The paradox is that facing death cured her fear of death. “Why would I waste my time not in search of the celebration [of life] and not in search of awe? There has been so much love this year that I believe legitimately everything is on my side, and I believe death too, is on my side. And the second I realize that death itself is on my side, I felt like nothing could kill me,” Gibson says in an interview.

DeathPartyFIN.jpg Illustrations by Brandon Hayman[/caption]

The Dying

“It is the most supremely interesting moment in life, the only one in fact when living seems life,” wrote Alice James — William and Henry James’ sister — as she faced death.

Whenever I experience some tragedy in life that brings me to my knees, there is also a death to my “self” that happens, which then strips away my ego. All spiritual transformations and religious conversions speak of this. Nature does too after a roaring forest fire burns thousands of years of story to only be reborn in new growth that is stronger. I have to ask myself, is the key to a more meaningful and deeper life usually comes after facing death, figuratively or literally? “All life is lived in the shadow of its own finitude, of which we are always aware — an awareness we systematically blunt through the daily distraction of living. But when this finitude is made acutely imminent, one suddenly collides with awareness so acute that it leaves no choice but to fill the shadow with as much light as a human being can generate — the sort of inner illumination we call meaning: the meaning of life,” Maria Popova of The Marginalian n wrote in an essay.

I watched the movie “Marcel the Shell” the other day, and at the end, the main character, Marcel, reflects on a great loss, the loss of his beloved grandmother, Connie, also a shell played by Isabella Rossellini. Before Connie dies, she led Marcel to a quiet place to perch in the basement where the window was always cracked. There the wind blew through Marcel’s shell creating a new sound, a new experience. In the face of loss, Marcel experiences the meaning of life. “It connected me, I felt, to everything. Because if I wasn’t there, the sound wouldn’t exist, and I felt like everything was in pieces, and I stood there and suddenly we were one large instrument. I like to go there a lot because it reminds me that I am not just one separate piece rattling around in this place, but that I am a part of a whole. And I truly enjoy the sound of myself connected to everything,” Marcel says.

Just before she dies, Connie reads the poem “The Trees” by Philip Larkin.
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In full-grown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

We tend to look at death as a failing of our bodies (or minds) when it is a natural part of living, of returning, of renewing. Experiencing death is one of the few things all humans have in common, which makes it a thing that connects us in our humanity like the wind in Marcel’s shell. I learned many lessons planning my death with The Art of Dying’s Buynak and Bell. Lesson 1: When that wave of grief hits, whether it is losing my father to cancer, my boyfriend to a breakup, or facing the end of my own life, I can’t swim against the current. I shall surrender to the fear and pain and fall back into the healing water until that final wave washes me ashore.

Lesson 2: To start living as if it could all end tomorrow and work with the doulas to plan a dinner party with my favorite people complete with toasts and convivial conversations about dying, loss, bucket lists, and to celebrate life.

Complete Article HERE!

Bucket lists: are they really such a good idea?

These ‘must-do’ itineraries people feel the need to undertake before they die can come with a heavy cost

Surfing features in many people’s bucket lists, along with swimming with dolphins and traveling the world.

By

It was revealed last week that a retired lecturer named Darrell Meekcom had been arrested for indecent exposure and dangerous driving after he mooned a speed camera. It sounds as though he’d managed to perform a contortionist manoeuvre at the wheel but in fact he stopped the car and got out while his wife went to buy some bread. The key detail, though, is that Meekcom is terminally ill, having been diagnosed with multiple system atrophy.

The act of baring his bottom to a traffic enforcement camera, Meekcom told the police, was an item on his “bucket list”. “Have you never wanted to moon a speed camera?” he asked one of the arresting officers.

There are endless lists of bucket lists available online, so named because they are a compilation of experiences that one should undergo before kicking the bucket. Typically they involve flying to far-off places or high-adrenaline pastimes like skydiving. There is even the Bucket List travel company.

Helen Damon, a counselling psychologist who specialises in dying and bereavement, notes that there is something “godlike and enthralling to have knowledge of one’s death”, which in turn can lead to acts of transgression. “There can be a sense that if you’re going to die, the worst is about to happen, you’re untouchable,” she says.

Except, of course, three police cars turned up at Meekcom’s house to arrest him. Apparently, he told the officers of his precarious grasp on life, but they were undeterred. They could have argued, presumably, that transgression would lose its meaning if they went easy on people with terminal illness. But that may be a little bit more existentialist than the West Mercia force care to get on three-squad-car assignments.

The aurora borealis, or northern lights, viewed at Torassieppi, Finland.
The aurora borealis, or northern lights, viewed at Torassieppi, Finland.

Damon believes bucket lists – with their familiar tropes of swimming with dolphins – are more often about conformity than transgression, creating an expectation of how we ought to live life large. “I wonder if it hasn’t become like diamond rings for engagements or the sudden rise in gender-reveal parties. People often say in situations of dying or bereavement that they wish there were manuals to guide them on how they should be feeling. Perhaps the bucket list performs a normative role on what to do.”

An appointment with death, which after all is the one certainty we all have to confront, does tend to focus the mind on what it means to be alive. Earlier this year, the journalist and self-improvement writer Oliver Burkeman published a book entitled Four Thousand Weeks, which is roughly the life-expectancy for the average westerner.

Burkeman reconfigured our allotted time in weeks, rather than about 80 years, because it centres attention on life’s shocking brevity. As he writes: “It’s only by accepting our finitude that we can step into a truly authentic relationship with life.”

While Burkeman wants us to appreciate the meaning of time, he has little time for the bucket-list approach, which he sees as just another form of stressful escapism. “Once you truly understand that you’re guaranteed to miss out on almost every experience the world has to offer,” he writes, “the fact that there are so many you still haven’t experienced stops feeling like a problem.”

That’s easier said than done in a world in which billions of individual experiences are shared for instant posterity on social media platforms like Instagram. And where the exotic and extreme are industrially commodified and consumed like any other product.

At the same time as the world has shrunk, our experiential ambitions have radically expanded. A hundred years ago, only the most intrepid of travellers would have even considered visiting the Himalayas. Nowadays, you have to queue to get to Mount Everest’s summit. It’s in the context of that availability of previously unimaginable adventures that people set their wish-lists.

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in the 2007 film The Bucket List.
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in the 2007 film The Bucket List.

On a public message put out on Facebook, I asked what kind of things people planned to do before they died, and the answers ranged from a surf trip along the Baja peninsula, seeing icebergs and the Northern Lights, shooting one’s age in a round of golf, to returning to a far-off birthplace.

For Simon Mahomo, a 60-year-old former options trader who cashed-in and now “pursues an alternative quest for meaning”, the question is whether it’s more meaningful to witness extraordinary scenes or to leave a more permanent trace. He plans to ride a dirt bike to South Africa, and asks rhetorically if that is “just egotism or is there meaning in it? I believe there is meaning.”

He cites, by way of illustration, the famous speech given by a dying android played by Rutger Hauer in the sci-fi film Blade Runner. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like… tears in rain. Time to die.” It’s a speech that captures both the grandeur of paying witness to spectacular events and the ephemeral nature of life. If it romanticises big experiences, it also pays bleak testament to the ever-present shadow that lends them meaning: death.

And staying in the realm of cinema, what seems certain is that on no one’s bucket list is the wish to see the Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman film The Bucket List, in which the pair of terminally ill patients travel around the world, visiting the Taj Mahal and riding motorcycles along the Great Wall of China.

The story is filled with so many sentimental cliches that it could make even the most placid viewer want to moon the screen, if not a speed camera.

In the end, the truth is that no event or scene is so large that it transcends death. Which may be why it’s wise to heed Burkeman’s advice to “seek novelty in the mundane”. There are unlikely to be any dolphins but nor will the police be turning up at your door.

Complete Article HERE!

5 Ways To Make Your Dog’s Last Days Their Best Days – DogTime

By Maggie Clancy

Grieving over the loss of a pet is traumatic. But sometimes, it can be even harder when we know that our dogs don’t have much time left. Anticipatory grief is real, and it’s a completely normal emotion to feel.

Dogs are very intuitive, and your grief may be contagious to your ailing pet. Perhaps instead of spending your remaining time with your canine companion in a state of grieving and sadness, you can make the rest of your dog’s life as comfortable and wonderful as possible.

Here are some tips on how to make your dog’s last days the best that they possibly can be.

Create A Bucket List

Dog parent Riina Cooke made the decision to make a bucket list for her terminally ill Boxer, and it helped her with the grieving process tremendously. From a cheeseburger to a pedicure, she filled her dog’s remaining time with fun and happiness.

What makes your dog ecstatic? Is it taking luxurious car rides? Hanging out with some of their favorite friends?

Create a list of what your dog loves to do best, and cross off as many as you can as long as your dog’s health and safety permits.

There’s nothing better than seeing your pup at their happiest, and there’s no better way to remember them than in that state, as well.

Go All Out With The Food

If your dog’s vet agrees that certain people foods are okay for your dog to ingest, give your pup the tastiest, most decadent food possible.

When my childhood dog, a nine-year-old Cocker Spaniel, was suffering from a myriad of ailments, we gave her steamed rice and steak every night for dinner. Some nights, her dinner was fancier than what the humans of the household were eating.

Ask your vet which foods are appropriate, and start making Fido gourmet meals.

Indulge In All Forms Of Pampering

Go buck wild with any and all forms of pampering, especially anything that will relax and soothe your dog.

Have a dog masseuse come to your house. Go to a dog bakery and get them the most outrageous dog cake you can find.

You can even go a little less traditional route and do things like take your dog to a pet communicator or psychic to hear what they’re really feeling. You may not be a believer, but it will probably be a fun experience and a fond memory.

Get Educated On Pain Management

This may not be the most fun part of the list, but it’s crucial. If your dog is suffering, it may not always be apparent that he or she is in pain. Educate yourself on the signs of pain in dogs.

If your dog hits a point of extreme pain or a point where you cannot take care of your pup yourself, it may be time to consider dog hospice care. Much like human hospice care, dog hospice care is from the comfort of your own home.

You can work with your vet on things like administering medications and deciding if and when it’s the right time for euthanasia.

Allow Your Friends And Family To Help You

In order for you to be in the right state of mind for when your dog is nearing the end of their life, you should have a solid support group. Talk to friends who know your dog well, family, and a veterinarian you can trust.

Many animal hospitals also offer support groups. By having this ring of support for yourself, you will be able to effectively and lovingly support your pooch through this painful time.

Letting go of a dog is never easy, but you can make it as positive of an experience as possible for both you and your dog.

If you’ve gone through the grieving process of a dog passing away, what did you do to make your dog’s last days their best? Do any fond memories bring you comfort? Let us know in the comments below!

Complete Article HERE!

B.C. man throws party as he undergoes medically-assisted death

‘The one thing that I don’t feel is loss,’ says widow

A dying mother wrote her children letters, leaving a gift of love for years

Before dying of brain cancer at age 56, Jacqueline Zinn wrote letters to each of her children, including daughter Mary Kathryn.

By Steven Petrow

My friend Jacqueline Zinn was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a brain cancer, in 2013; she died 18 months later, at age 56, leaving behind a husband and four kids. Jacquie was a triathlete who knew a thing or two about endurance, and she managed her treatment — surgery, radiation and chemotherapy — with the same skill and organization she had brought to her work as a project manager for a drug company. Once she realized that she had only weeks to live, Jacquie began planning for the next chapter: her death and its aftermath.

And so “every night for weeks she wrote letters to our children,” her husband Doug recalled. Jacquie wrote multiple letters to each child, to be opened at different life milestones. Jacquie wanted to be “present with her kids,” he said, at each of those important moments

for what I jokingly call “The End” is not for faint hearts. War hero John McCain is said to have been disciplined and firm as he planned his funeral over the past year, including the singing of the Irish ballad “Danny Boy.” But few of us have that strength. Recently divorced, I needed to rewrite my will and my medical power of attorney as well as a host of other financial and medical documents. At almost every turn, I found myself crashing head-on into the wall of denial. Just last week, my attorney begged me to acknowledge that I was at least receiving her emails, even if I couldn’t respond to them. “Yes,” I replied, tersely. All this resistance, and I’m not suffering from any terminal condition.

That’s why Jacquie Zinn’s letters to her children seem heroic to me. After all, she did have a terminal diagnosis when she sat down to write what ended up being more than a dozen letters to her children, ranging in age from 11 to 21, and she knew her time was short. I first heard about the letters at her memorial service in 2013. This past spring, working on a book about death and dying, I reached out to her second-born son, Jerry, who was writing about the loss of his mother, to ask if he’d be willing to share his letters from her. He’d already gotten two — one soon after her death and one when he graduated from college — and after some hesitation, he said okay. Now 24, Jerry will get the final letter when he marries.

“The letters my mother left me are among the most precious gifts I possess,” he told me. “She diligently took the time, the very limited time, as her life was coming to an end to sit down and think about her children’s futures.”

So one day, in perfect cursive penmanship and blue ink after her oncologist told her she had only weeks left, Jacquie wrote her first letter to Jerry, then age 19, to be opened after she died. Here is a portion of it:

“Dear Jerry, my budding film-maker,

“I know you have a lot of emotions running through you, as I did when my father died, but I was much older than you at the time, so I really can’t begin to truly comprehend what you are feeling. I am so incredibly sorry that I had to die while you are so young and I assume it sucks for you. Perhaps you can use some of these emotions and feelings in your upcoming work(s), assuming you continue to pursue film.

“Let me assure you that I did absolutely everything I could to stay alive for as long as possible. I know you realize that having been with me at many of my treatments or tests. Plus the acupuncture, tons of praying I also did. But for some reason I just didn’t make it as one of the chosen ones to be cured. But because of what I did I’m sure I lived much longer than if I hadn’t been in good shape to begin with.

“I am incredibly proud of you for everything you have done in your relatively short life. I will be watching over you every day to see what new and exciting things you will accomplish — regardless of what occupations(s) you pursue over your lifetime.

“Do your best to support Dad and your siblings, especially during this first year as it will be the hardest for everyone. I remember that from when my father died. Time will certainly help, but it takes a long time to focus on the happy memories while the sad thoughts are more immediate and closer at hand.

“I had many fantastic years on earth, more than a lot of people, hence, I have no complaints. I survived a melanoma, car accident in the mountains of West Virginia with Uncle Jerry, car accident in Durham. So I have already lived many lives and I was extremely grateful for each and every moment. Try and live your life that way and you will be a happy and fulfilled human being.

“I love more than you will ever know, my dearest Jerry.

“Love, Mom.”

On the day Jerry graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2016, Doug handed over letter No. 2, written with the same pen, on the same type of note paper.

“My sweet dear Jerry,

“Well — this is it — a big milestone in your life — college graduation! Congratulations. I am so incredibly proud of you no matter what your major or minors. I know you made it worthwhile and got just exactly what you wanted to out of the experience. I know you learned an incredible amount about subjects and probably an even greater amount about people.”

Jerry said that at various times during college he had considered dropping out, but “knowing that I would never receive that letter if I did not graduate was a very strong influence in keeping me in school. The letter was a motivation for which I will be forever grateful.” Knowing Jacquie as I did, I’m certain that was part of her master plan.

In the second letter, Jacquie signs off with these words: “I am watching over you all the time, or at least I hope I can do that! Congratulations, again. Enjoy this fabulous day and all the celebrations around. Big Hugs and Kisses! Much Love, Mom.”

What a gift, an eternal gift, I thought as I read and reread the two letters. More than anything, I silently bowed in amazement, understanding how Jacquie had faced her own version of “The End.” Doug reminded me that she’d written her letters while in a wheelchair, paralyzed on one side.

With Jacquie’s example in mind, I finally sat down and read the pile of documents my lawyer had sent to me, realizing that my denial served no purpose. To my surprise, I found comfort in taking care of that necessary business — once done. I’d like to think that was something Jacquie felt, too, as she sent her missives into the future.

Complete Article HERE!

Learning to live before I die

By Roberta Ness

I am going to die.

I don’t mean right this moment and I don’t mean that I invite it. I mean that it is inevitable. Echoing in my mind ever louder is the old adage, “the only thing guaranteed in life is death.”

Most of my life – until the very end of it, for many of us – we simply deny death. We forget or don’t hear or don’t heed the echo. But I’m doing the opposite. Like the famous commentator Norman Cousins I’ve decided to embrace dying. Cousins said, “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”

First, let me explain what seems like a morbid focus on my mortality. You can skip the next few paragraphs if you’re easily grossed out, and for a long time I didn’t tell anyone because it’s pretty disgusting. A couple of years ago, I developed life-threatening diarrhea. Imagine that dreaded clean-out prep you have to undergo for a colonoscopy. Except that it doesn’t just go on for a day; it goes on for days without end. Just keeping myself hydrated was a constant challenge. I laid on the couch pretty much unable to get up. Fortunately, my gastroenterologist made a diagnosis of an autoimmune disease like lupus – except that my immune cells seem to particularly love munching on my colon.

Also, fortunately, modern medicine has developed a special steroid that for me was a cure that helped me to be, thankfully, (mostly) symptom-free. Then I went to South Africa and all hell broke loose. My colitis symptom – eliminating huge quantities of brown water as often as every 15 minutes – recurred full blast. Again, a raft of tests revealed the diagnosis and a treatment. It was none other than traveler’s diarrhea – three types of E. coli were all partying in my bowels and a blast of antibiotics took them out.

Out of the woods again – whew – except I wasn’t. About a week later I got yet another series of bouts. This time my stool tests were clean. So what was going on? Just as I faced another colonoscopy I remembered the miracle steroid. I had tried it after South Africa and it did nothing. But that was when I’d been loaded with bacteria. Maybe the bugs had triggered a recurrence of the underlying disease? So I started myself back on the steroid and I seem to be OK again. But coming to terms with the fact that I will live the rest of my life with this autoimmune condition has forced me to acknowledge my own mortality.

As my friends age, each is confronting death. Those with chronic diseases are dealing with this reality more actively. But even in those who remain entirely healthy and robust, I see signs – mostly signs of denial.

Don’t get me wrong. Denial is a terrifically adaptive defense mechanism. But is it the best way to avoid dying while we still live? What does it look like for me to not just deny but actually welcome my lifetime limit? It looks like the Tim McGraw song:

“I went skydiving. I went Rocky Mountain climbing. I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu. And I loved deeper. And I spoke sweeter. And I gave forgiveness I’d been denying. And he said, ‘Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying.’ ”

I’m not so sure about the bull riding and the skydiving, but other than that I’m living by McGraw’s recipe. I’ve taken up Ecstatic dancing. I’ve become a regular at ad lib storytelling events – although so far just as an audience member. I’ve been traveling more and to more exotic places. I’ve gone to my first rock ‘n’ roll concert. I’m even going (only because my 20-something children invited and are going with me) to Burning Man – a kaleidoscopic art and music happening in the Nevada desert. And, yes, I know that temperatures there range from 110 degrees during the day to 30 degrees at night, and I know I’ll need to truck in all my own provisions including tent, water and a face mask for the sandstorms.

Most importantly, I’ve been giving/asking for forgiveness. And I’ve become incredibly committed to loving more deeply. So yes, I’m dying. But inside I’m more alive than I’ve ever been.

Complete Article HERE!