Please visit the home of our new project, (see drop down list above) collecting stories and sharing experiences about being present during transition, crisis, illness or for the passing of others.
We just want to make sure that everyone knows that the artist Lin Larsen is responsible for all of the illustrations, including the cover of our book Caregiver Revolution
This was written by a friend SP who has been in the medical field for years.
Having worked with critically ill and dying people for over 20 years as a social worker I can tell you that “getting your affairs in order” is not something people generally like to talk about or do. But it is SO IMPORTANT.
You may very well survive through this pandemic BUT you may get sick and need others to step in and help manage decisions or your financial affairs. Should you become terminally ill there may not be the time or resources to get any of it done. So do the basics; (p.s. I am not a lawyer so this is NOT legal advice)
1. Establish a healthcare surrogate and financial power of attorney by hiring a lawyer or using some forms you can get online. Google your states “Advance Healthcare Directive” and “Financial Power or Attorney” forms and complete them as soon as possible. Do your due diligence to find reliable sources of information. Consult any legal professionals you know or talk to others you trust about how they got their documents done.
2. Research “Holographic Wills” or “handwritten wills” and whether they are legal in your state. Look into how to write one if you decide to go that way. Or hire a lawyer to draft a “Last Will and Testament” as soon as possible.
3. Hire an Estate Planning Attorney if you have the resources to do so as they are the best people to walk you through the process of many legal issues that can arise. Especially with complex personal and financial matters.
4. Consider what you own and maybe even take the time to make a list of the important things. And write down who you want to leave specific items to. This can be helpful for your Healthcare Surrogate or loved ones to have access to.
5. Share with someone you trust critical passwords for your phone, computer, bank accounts….whatever you want them to have access to if you are very ill and cannot manage these things yourself.
6. Make a list of contacts you rely on so others have phone numbers if needed such as primary care doctor, specialists doctors, veterinarian, lawyer, pharmacy, etc.
7. Make a list of your medications with specific information about what you take and when. And indicate where they are located.
7. Be sure to let someone you trust know where all your important documents are located. And how to access them if they are locked and in a secure place.
8. Consider writing notes or letters to people you love telling them anything you want to say…maybe haven’t said….or want to say again. Or perhaps call or text someone now.
9. Think about how you want to spend your time. Your energy now. We always assume we will have more. But we now know that this is not always the case. Become aware of your priorities.
10. Focus on what is most important for you to do or be now. Get really clear about this and spend some time on whatever that is each day.
These are lessons I have learned watching literally thousands of people live through serious illness and many who have died in my work. And it is certainly not an exhaustive list. But it is a good start.
If in the end everything turns out to be fine, great! You will have done some important work that will serve you and those you love. And if it turns out you get sick you will be comforted by knowing that you have completed the work of getting ready and there will be less chaos and strain on an already difficult situation.
Take advantage of this time and place. Be well, pay attention and move forward knowing you have attended to the important things
One of the greatest thinkers and teachers of last century, Steiner gave many lectures to medical students, study groups, trade groups and more. His books and lectures are collected on www.rsarchive.org. This is from a lecture entitled Relationships between the Living and the Dead
“In any case, however, the way in which we are united with the earth, through warmth, is the materialistic way. The fact that even our physical body remains connected with the earth, has a great, an essential, importance for the one who has passed through the gate of death. He passes into the spiritual world. He leaves his body to the earth. This is an experience, an event, for the so-called dead. He has the experience: — “Your body passes away from you”. We must realise that this is an experience.
What is an experience? Well, you can form a conception of what it is, if you consider the experiences on the physical plane. It is an experience, if you have some new sensation, or feeling which you have never had before, and you learn to understand this. You have added something to your soul which you did not possess before a new concept, a new perception.
courtesy https://www.rsarchive.org/
But now imagine such a small experience increased into a very great one. It is something mighty, something unfathomably mighty, that the human being experiences, which gives him the possibility between death and birth to see, to realise, to grasp the fact that he lays this physical body aside, that he gives over to the planet which he is leaving. It is a very great experience, an experience which naturally cannot be compared with any experience on earth — a mighty experience. The value of an experience lies in the fact that something remains in our soul as a result, as a consequence, of this experience. We may, therefore, ask the question: — What then remains as a result, as a consequence of this experience of the falling away of the physical body from the entirety of our being?
Indeed, if we were not able to have this experience when we pass through the gate of death, of knowingly participating in the falling away of our physical body, we should never be able to develop an Ego-consciousness after death. The Ego consciousness is aroused after death through this experience of the falling away of the physical body. For the dead it is of the greatest significance that he is able to say: — “I see my physical body slipping away from me and disappearing.” And, on the other hand: — “I see growing within me, out of this event, the feeling — I am an Ego.”
We may express this with the paradox words: — “If we were unable to experience our death from the other side, we would not have an Ego-consciousness after death.”
Just as the human soul entering existence through birth or, let us say, through conception — gradually becomes accustomed to the use of the physical apparatus and thereby acquires the Ego-consciousness within the body, so does the human being acquire the Ego consciousness after death, from the other side of existence, through the fact that he experiences the falling away of the physical body from the whole human being.
Consider now, for a moment, what this means. When we contemplate Death from the physical side of existence, we may say that it appears to us as the end of existence — as that which has beyond it, as far as the physical outlook is concerned, “Nothing”. Viewed from the other side, Death as such is a most wonderful thing, which can ever anew stand before man’s soul. For it signifies that man can always have the feeling of the victory of spiritual life over physical life. And just as long as we can always have before us the conception of our birth here, in physical life — for no one can have the conceptual nature of his birth through physical means alone, indeed, no one knows anything about his birth through his own physical experience — just so surely do we always have before us, when we become fully conscious after death, a direct experience of the event of our death.
At the same time, this event of our death contains nothing which is in any way depressing; on the contrary, this death event, viewed from the other side, is the greatest, most wonderful and beautiful event which can appear before our soul. For it always places before us, in its entirety, the greatness of the idea that in the spiritual world, consciousness, self-consciousness is the result of death — that death stimulates this self-consciousness, in the spiritual world.”
In tough times here’s a diversion. Thank you to our friends at @DeathSalon for posting this. And while we are on the subject, I also have to recommend a charming little book Rest Lightly by Paul Shore…enjoy!
