Needing to Pause
Last week, I flew up to Seattle with my husband to visit his dying father. He needed only to ask and I went with him. After going through the deaths of my own parents twenty years ago, I understand the…
Category Dying
Finding Meaning and Purpose
Humans need meaning and purpose. In addition to the needs we share with other animals — oxygen, water, food and shelter, and the needs we share with other social animals — connection, community, and affection (see my blog, Why We…
What is Your Legacy?
We mostly think of legacy in terms of the money or property we might pass on to our survivors. It is actually anything transmitted or received from us including intangibles like values, beliefs, or attitudes. Often the intangible legacies are…
Avoiding the Whirlwind of Regret
The #1 regret of the dying is not living a life true to one’s self, but instead living the life others expected of you. The 2nd regret is working too hard. Living without regret means: I have made these 2…
Fears of Death Creates Fear of Life
We are biologically programed to fear death. All animals are. By fear I mean that automatic response of fight, flee or freeze when faced with a threat to survival. A shadow passes over and the lizard freezes. It passes again…
The Practice of Impermanence
August contains a powerful lesson in impermanence. Each year, school-aged children across the country foresee the ending of their summer vacation. It is a huge loss of freedom and play. This early conditioning of the school/summer cycle is so deeply…
Cultivating Courage to Face Fear
Going after our dream is a little bit like a Halloween adventure. We don our costumes – a vision of ourselves — and set off to claim the promised rewards. Along the way we may encounter dark shadows and scary…
Creating Community
August — time to connect with friends and family! This summer I took some time off and went on retreat to a Sufi center in New Mexico. I’ve been doing this on and off for over 30 years, but two…
Should We Have More Control Over When We Die?
Modeled after Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, the California End of Life Option Act, SB128 would allow a mentally competent, terminally ill adult in the final stages of his/her disease to request medication from a physician to bring about a…
Bonding Grief
All living creatures come equipped with some form of a distress signaling system. It is a matter of survival and happiness. In his book Buddha Brain, psychologist Rick Hansen described three evolutionary stages of the brain that provide different signaling…
Grieving a Friend – Coming Closer While Letting Go
I experienced a number of losses the year Marianne died — three friends and a brother. I felt her death more keenly because she was among my closest friends and because I accompanied her through the final months of her…
Three Ways Death Can Invigorate Life
Death has a bad public image. In hospitals, it’s the enemy to be fought and resisted. On TV, death is either quick and quickly forgotten in cop shows; scary, ooookeee spooky in horror shows; or tragic and depressing in dramas.…
Transforming Death Denial into Curiosity, Self-Discovery and Wonderment
I made a lot of mistakes when my parents were dying. Obvious signs of their aging were overlooked, communication broke down, I often failed to show up and when I did, I quickly ran away. I felt confused, indecisive and…
A Time to Die
When my friend, Marianne, had a recurrence of a particularly nasty cancer, she fought it for all she was worth. She was only 53 and not ready to die. Her oncologist told her it was time to sign up with…
When to Say No to Medical Treatment
Over the last few decades, advances in medical technology have dramatically changed the way we die. In the good ole days (not always so good), families waited patiently at the bedside of dying loved ones while nature took its course.…
How Contemplating Death Can Enhance Life
As the saying goes: Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. Taxes, however, come due at predictable times, which forces us to prepare, even if we hate doing it. Death, on the other had, is completely unpredictable and…
Healing Grief Through Story
My sister Kip and her husband Richard had two adorable brown sable Burmese kitties — Mina and Clovis. They were litter mates, housemate, and playmates. Last November, during that terrible Sandy storm that left parts of Lower Manhattan without power,…
Sweet Dreams
Last night I dreamed: I am in a large cineplex theater. I am searching for a movie that has already started and only has fifteen minutes left. I search and search but I am never able to find the right…
Death — a whole new adventure
Tighe Foley, one of the four people appearing in my documentary film Facing Death . . . with open eyes, spoke about a pivotal moment when he switched from struggling to live with HIV to anticipating his death. “I was…
The Power of Story
After my dear friend Marianne died, my husband George and I spent a couple of months clearing out her apartment and storage lockers. It’s an interesting process sorting through the accumulation of a lifetime, a little like an archeological excavation.…