I feel as though I write about death a lot in this blog, and if that’s true, it’s partly because our stories are such an important part of the legacy we leave behind.
My virtual friend Jessica Lipnack introduced me to the Engage with Grace project. The idea of the project is to get folks talking about what they would like the end of their lives to be like. Bloggers have been asked to blog about the project today, Nov. 26, and to introduce a plea (below) from project founder Alexandra Drane. This project is also a natural for A Storied Career because …
Engage with Grace begins with a story — a story about an extraordinary young woman named Rosaria Vandenberg who was 32 when she was diagnosed with stage IV glioblastoma … Read the full story.The site also notes:
Who was it who said, “The death of a million is a statistic — the death of one is a story.”?
When your loved ones tell the story of your death, how would you like that story to be told? TELL THEM how by answering the five questions in Engage with Grace’s One Slide:
This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team:
We make choices throughout our lives — where we want to live, what types of activities will fill our days, with whom we spend our time. These choices are often a balance between our desires and our means, but at the end of the day, they are decisions made with intent. But when it comes to how we want to be treated at the end our lives, often we don’t express our intent or tell our loved ones about it.
This has real consequences. 73 percent of Americans would prefer to die at home, but up to 50 percent die in hospital. More than 80 percent of Californians say their loved ones “know exactly” or have a “good idea” of what their wishes would be if they were in a persistent coma, but only 50 percent say they’ve talked to them about their preferences.
But our end-of-life experiences are about a lot more than statistics. They’re about all of us. So the first thing we need to do is start talking. Engage With Grace: The One Slide Project was designed with one simple goal: to help get the conversation about end-of-life experience started.
The idea is simple: Create a tool to help get people talking. One Slide, with just five questions on it. Five questions designed to help get us talking with each other, with our loved ones, about our preferences. And we’re asking people to share this One Slide — wherever and whenever they can—at a presentation, at dinner, at their book club. Just One Slide, just five questions.
Let’s start a global discussion that, until now, most of us haven’t had.
Here is what we are asking you: Download The One Slide and share it at any opportunity — with colleagues, family, friends. Think of the slide as currency and donate just two minutes whenever you can. Commit to being able to answer these five questions about the end of life experience for yourself and for your loved ones. Then commit to helping others do the same. Get this conversation started.
Let’s start a viral movement driven by the change we as individuals can effect…and the incredibly positive impact we could have collectively. Help ensure that all of us — and the people we care for — can end our lives in the same purposeful way we live them.
Just One Slide, just one goal. Think of the enormous difference we can make together.
To learn more please click here.
The project was featured in today’s Boston Globe.
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Thanks so much for posting this, Kathy. This is a lovely way of telling the story. Love, jessica
I won't bring this up during thanksgiving but i think it is so important to talk about. I am honestly looking forward to starting a dialouge with my family. Thank you so much for this post.
Japanese Zen monks and haiku poets have a tradition of writing their haiku death poems as far back as the sixteenth century. Tanka death poems date back to the eighth century. These poets and monks often wrote their final poems on their death bed.
Here is a tanka by Fuse Yajiro:
Before long
I shall be a ghost
but just now
how they bite my flesh!
the winds of autumn
Another tanka by Moriya Sen'an
Bury me when I die
beneath a wine barrel
in a tavern.
With luck
the cask will leak.
The great haiku poet, Basho, wrote this death haiku:
On a journey, ill:
my dream goes wandering
over withered fields
Here is a death haiku by Ichimu:
A broken dream —
where do they go
the butterflies?
Here is a death haiku by Roshu:
Time to go . . .
they say the journey is a long one:
change of robes
These death poems and hundreds more can be found in the book:
Japanese Death Poems
compiled by Yoel Hoffmann
Japanese Zen monks and haiku poets have a tradition of writing their haiku death poems as far back as the sixteenth century. Tanka death poems date back to the eighth century. These poets and monks often wrote their final poems on their death bed.
Here is a tanka by Fuse Yajiro:
Before long
I shall be a ghost
but just now
how they bite my flesh!
the winds of autumn
Another tanka by Moriya Sen'an
Bury me when I die
beneath a wine barrel
in a tavern.
With luck
the cask will leak.
The great haiku poet, Basho, wrote this death haiku:
On a journey, ill:
my dream goes wandering
over withered fields
Here is a death haiku by Ichimu:
A broken dream —
where do they go
the butterflies?
Here is a death haiku by Roshu:
Time to go . . .
they say the journey is a long one:
change of robes
These death poems and hundreds more can be found in the book:
Japanese Death Poems
compiled by Yoel Hoffmann
Having been raised with two chronic/terminally ill siblings, discussions of how to die, and how to die with grace, are not new to me. Eventually I lived through the experience when my 26 year old sister chose to die at home. It was a privilege to care for her in her final hours, and a comfort to know that she was where and with whom she wanted to be. Her struggle with life, and her death, became the focus of my book, "Sixtyfive Roses: A Sister's Memoir." We live in a culture where death parades across our TV's both fictionally and on the news hour, yet we find it painfully difficult to have "the talk" with our intimates. Thankyou for blogging on this most important subject.
Thanks for sharing, Heather. I hope you also saw my entry about your book:
http://astoriedcareer.com/2008/11/when-survivors-are-compelled-t.html