A Graceful Death

     Dealing with a terminal illness can fill your head with a tornado of emotions, which can lead to the attitude of “I’ll take care of things later”. There can be so many choices and questions. My goal is to make it easier for you by gathering thoughts, information, and being a resource center for you.

1) Setting an intention for your transition can be so beautiful. 

Visual boards are great instruments. What kind of exit do you want?
What would you have to do to feel complete?
How do you want to leave this world? Consciously, peacefully, gracefully?
What was your soul growth?
What do you want to pass on?
What was this lifetime about?
What is your legacy?
What do you want to share that didn’t work for you?
How did you expand in your ability to love?
How much did you grow in learning your Life lessons?

2) Healing Relationships

How do you talk to those that don’t want to speak about death?
How to move past regret into forgiveness (for yourself and others)
Do you feel more comfortable writing letters to loved ones or does digital scrapbooking fit you better?

3) Address fears

Don’t stuff them. Feel them, acknowledge them and honor them. You are human after all. We are all scared of the unknown. If this were not true, we would all be speaking about death.

Addressing fears and becoming comfortable with death. It’s OK to have fear, pain, curiosity. Allow yourself to be comfortable with fear, especially fear of the unknown.

4) Putting your affairs in order.

Have you written a living will?
Appointed a healthcare power of attorney?
Completed an advanced directive?
Could a loved one correctly describe how you would like to be treated in the case of a terminal illness?
Is there someone you trust whom you’ve appointed to advocate on your behalf when the time is near?
If there were a choice, would you prefer to die at home or in a hospital? In addition to alleviating the patient’s comfort, palliative care can also provide an opportunity for family and friends to gather information about how an illness is likely to progress and to begin planning for long-term-care needs

Have you thought about making funeral arrangements? Music, readings, stories, flowers, casket/plot or cremation?

When was the last time you cleaned out those closets? Sometimes leaving objects of value, be it monetary or sentimental, can be a wonderful gift.
What a gift to leave your loved ones clean closets! Is all that stuff that you don’t want to go through just leaving more work for loved ones later?
Purging your home can be very healing!

These questions can be answered and information gathered with my four week coaching plan. It is presented in a bite-sized, easily digestable manner. Together we can sift through some very important information to help you and your loved ones during times that can be difficult.

I found some poems/ prayers I wanted to share.

“Dear God,
May every aspect of my being
be converted to Truth.
May every cell fall into place
and serve a higher plan.
I no longer wish to be
who I was.
I wish to be more.

Amen”

Buy the Book
This inspiring quote by Marianne Williamson is from her book, Illuminated Prayers, Simon & Schuster (December 2, 1997).
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Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to
eternal life.

The above prayer by St Francis of Assisi appears in numerous books, and is also printed on posters and fine art prints.
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Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without affect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well.

Death Is Nothing at All can be found in (inexpensive) book form, too, that includes illustrations:
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When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:

There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
or, you will be taught how to fly

The leaning tree: [poems]
by Patrick Overton. This book includes the above poem. Published 1975 by Bethany Press.
Rebuilding the front porch of America: Essays on the art of community making
by Patrick Overton. This book also includes the above poem. Published 1997 by Columbia College.

Hello world! My name is Veronica and want to create a place where people can come together and share their experiences and thoughts on death and dying. I want to offer a loving enviroment, support, and some education along the journey that each one of must partake in at some point in our lives.

My personal experience includes the death of my aunt in 2000 due to breast cancer. Secondly, my granny passed in 2001 in a car accident.

Whether you are preparing for death of a loved one or the passing happens suddenly, they both hurt just the same.

When my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer, she chose not to tell anyone at first because she didn’t want to feel the ‘weight ‘ of anyone’s worries on her shoulders. She chose alternative medicine without conventional medicine. This cause much friction between her and her husband. Her argument was that it was her body, thus her choice. She had a lumpectomy and opted out of chemotherapy. Almost two years later, she felt another lump. Again not telling anyone, she lived this way for three years.  Finally, her husband and mother talked her into receiving conventional, western, therapy. She had a mastectomy followed by chemo and radiation therapies. She had been cancer free for about five months when the cancer returned. This time it was in her brain. She lived about two months then passed.

I was very close to my aunt and had never had anyone close to me die. I am a Christian and know that there is something greater after this world. I just missed the availability of picking up the phone and asking her all sorts of questions whenever I want. When I have quieted myself, I have had some experiences where I have felt her presence, and it just makes me all warm inside and I can’t help but to smile.  Sometimes it’s not even when I’m quiet, I’ll be in the middle of dinner and the thought of her comes flooding into my mind. Someone says a phrase that she would have said or I see something on TV or a movie ,and other times it is something I have read that reminds me of her. It may not be as convienient as picking up the phone, but I guess t this is the way we comunicate now.