Heartfelt thanks to the amazing Erica Goldblatt Hyatt for discovering & sharing this invaluable article!
The first thing that struck me about the article was at how sentimental I felt reading Dr. Wyatt's observations & suggestions - reminded me so much of my experience with Mom. Mom & I did look ahead to her way-down-the-road departure. We were both all too aware how swiftly death can come, at any age, so discussions touched both of us. We were blessed to be raised in a faith that presents death as a doorway. We were both open to discussing every aspect of death and - more importantly - dying. Every aspect was considered - and those talks, which started four years before her tumble, stood us & our family in very good stead. Reading this article, kept wishing Dr. Wyatt could have met Mom - they would have hit it off, I'm sure!
The six steps are simple, yet easy for people to not think about:
1. Think about it.
2. Write about it.
3. Read about it.
4. Learn about it.
5. Talk about it.
6. Work with it.
Now that you've read the six steps, read the article. Seriously. Now. A few moments of your time will - no doubt in my mind - make a huge difference in your life, perhaps in many lives.
Let me add two steps. Work through these steps with another person. Along with reflection & contemplation, the work calls out for discussion & collaboration. If my brothers & sister could have made themselves available, they would have been included. I doubt that what we ended up with would have happened working individually.
The other step - where Dr. Wyatt recommends volunteering to work with hospice or palliative care patients, my urging is to expand your circle of older friends. Up through my young adult years, the local ladies in my hometown put on Friday Supper, where almost all of the adults - from teens to great-grandparents - gathered together for a yummy communal dinner. Each generation followed the same pattern: very elderly in the front rows, working their way back through the elderly to upper middle age, then to the lower, to the young marrieds, to the college guys & gals, to high school kids. (Friday Supper was a gold mine for upper elementary school girls, who babysat while Moms & Dads got a nice night out on their own.).
Alas, Friday Supper is long gone. My generation was the last to grow up knowing - some by sight, some more closely - a range of adults unimaginable today, even in my little hometown. How could I fear death when I'd seen so many olders living & dying well? To reduce your fear of death, expand your circle of older friends.
More smiles - Dr. Wyatt includes a link to The Conversation, the topic of an April post on this blog. (Have got do some more!)
It's an excellent article, but leaves out the one step that (in my opinion) is the most important - to rise above your fear of dying, live life well. Live this moment & the next & the next as well as you possibly can. Then, death will only be another moment.
post script - Am adding another book to read, ideally together with a loved one - Living With the End in Mind. It was published the year after Mom & I began our own conversation and two years before she was reunited with her O Best Beloved, yet I didn't find it until years after Mom's death. When people are prepared in the practical sense for the unexpected, they tend to have fewer fears about the possibility. This book was written by Doug & Erin Tierney Kramp, a young husband & wife, parents of a little girl, after Erin was diagnosed with cancer. Their approach is life-affirming, practical & full of a grounded hope that good comes from everything, that everything is a trigger for good.
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