7 For Whom Do I Care in My Demise?
Immediately after her terminal diagnosis, Paula had expected a flood of compassion and concern. Paula had expected to soak up and wallow in the tears and commiseration of others. Yet that hadn’t quite happened. Others had shown deep if brief concern. But Paula soon realized that everyone else had their own lives to carry on. Paula wasn’t going to float along on a river of sympathy. She instead swiftly recognized that her voice, her response, and her care and communications would set the tone for her journey into the beyond. And as that journey marched inexorably on, Paula became glad that she was writing her own narrative, weaving it into the grand narrative that she knew defined her and gave her life.
Control
The prior chapter reminded you of who should care about your journey into the transcendent beyond. Yet just as others might care for you on your journey, you might reciprocally care for others, even though you are the one who faces your soon demise. How you treat others may be more significant to you in your journey than how they treat you. You cannot control the response of others, even your closest family members and friends, to your impending demise. They may react in unexpected ways, drawing closer to you or pulling back from you, encouraging and supporting you or ignoring, avoiding, and disappointing you. They may move away from a close relationship, instead being flippant or dismissive, rather than lean into your relationship with due compassion and concern. You, on the other hand, control the narrative of your demise, not its course but its discourse. You choose with whom to communicate and what to communicate, particularly faith, hope, forgiveness, and love.
Care
On your journey toward your own demise, you will very likely have others for whom to care. Your demise is of course the most personal, demanding, and unrelenting event you’ll encounter, something you can’t ignore as you might try to ignore a sore foot, runny nose, slight cough, or mild toothache. You have every reason to attend to your own concerns and interests. No one else has a strong claim on your limited time. Yet your demise affects others, physically, mentally, and emotionally of course, but also potentially in their housing, provision, finances, and other material and circumstantial interests. Again, those interests don’t give others a claim on your limited time. But those interests do give you an opportunity to show your own care and concern for them. Whether or not they treat you with the sensitivity and compassion you are unquestionably due under your circumstances, you may have substantial power and place to bless them, materially, personally, and spiritually. Take that opportunity. You won’t regret it. Make your last words and acts count for their very best.
Communication
Before we examine the folks for whom you might care on the last leg of your earthly journey, consider a few words about communication. Words spill out of us like rushing waters. We don’t always wisely consider their content, timing, impact, or course. Eternity nonetheless holds us accountable for every word we speak. Once spoken, you can’t take a word back. You can’t unring a bell. You can’t unwind the web your words have woven in the cortex of those who hear them. You may see a small or large parade of people for the last time, as your transcendence nears. Some of those individuals may remember their last conversation with you and your last words for a long time, giving your last words a peculiar impact. The final stretch of your journey into the beyond is a good time to choose your words with special sensitivity toward their eternal impact. No one should rush you if you take a few moments to compose your thoughts before speaking, even before responding to things others say to you. Control your tongue. If you’ve used your voice rashly on earlier occasions, as we all do, your last words may repair much damage that your earlier words have done. Keep your communications loving and encouraging, even forgiving and informing. The composure of your spirit and soul counts more, not less, as your body abandons you.
Spouse
Your spouse is the person for whom you must care most in your transcendence. You may reasonably expect and will likely receive substantial care and concern from your spouse, more than anyone else, even doctors, nurses, and attendants. Yet your sensitivity, concern, and care for your spouse should be even greater than what you receive. You may in your physical decline not be able to lift much more than a finger to serve and help your spouse. Your mental focus and capacities may also diminish markedly to the point that you cannot express all that you wish. But whatever capacities you retain for whatever period over the course of your transcendence, direct them toward care and concern for your spouse. Your spouse may need your estate plan executed, updated, or adjusted. Your spouse may need deeds, titles, designations, and accounts changed. Do those things, or ensure that others accomplish them if you cannot do them yourself. Beyond the material arrangements and administration, spend the time with your spouse that your spouse requests and desires. Share the warmth and words with your spouse that your spouse needs to feel and hear. Show your spouse that your care for your spouse is every bit as important to you, or more so, than your care for yourself.
Children
Your children are the others for whom you must care most on the last leg of your journey into the transcendent realm. Just as in the case of your spouse, you may expect substantial care from your children over the course of your transcendence. Indeed, your adult children may be far more capable than your spouse to provide you with care, or your spouse may have predeceased you, leaving your children fully responsible for your care. But whether or not your children offer and provide that care, you may have the opportunity to care for them, even as your capacities decline. The care you show your children may include ensuring that your estate plan treats them for their best. You may have sentimental items or valuable property you wish to convey to them, or support for them you wish or need to arrange, depending on their ages, capacities, and other circumstances. Your authorization and execution of various documents, or even oral approvals you give to others, may be all it takes to make an enormous material difference in the care, provision, and security of your children. Yet even greater than material care, of which you may not even be capable, you hold the power to encourage, inspire, forgive, uplift, and bless your children, even by the sparest words and smallest acts. Don’t miss that opportunity.
Grandchildren
You may also have grandchildren to bless in the course of your transcendence. We are generally closest to our children, having raised them. Our children raise our grandchildren, usually in their own home rather than with us. And that home in which your grandchildren live may be far away from you. Yet grandchildren can have especially close relationships with their grandparents who, while family members, don’t have the direct responsibility of provision and care. Everything you bestow on a grandchild, both in terms of time and material, is a gift more so than a need or expectation. Both you and the grandchild know it. Everything you do for your grandchildren is an act of love, care, and devotion, and they feel it. You may have the means and desire to include your grandchildren in your estate plan, to see that they receive sentimental items, valuable interests, or both. You may also or alternatively be able to spend special time with them or make gifts to them before your passing, if you can do so with a sensitivity fitting to their age and maturity, as their parents approve. If you have it in you, take the occasion to bless your grandchildren on your transcendent journey’s final leg.
Friends
Your energies may be limited in the course of your demise. It would be natural and understandable if so. The little time and energy you may have, you should definitely devote to your family. Your family members and friends would both understand and expect it. Don’t dissipate your energies on friends when you have family members for whom you should be caring. Yet if you do have the capacity to care for your friends in the course of your transcendence, then by all means do so. Friends generally aren’t looking to you for material support or gifted items. Rather, they may hope to have your simple and heartfelt acknowledgment of what their friendship meant to you. If the course of your demise permits it, periodic visits a few days or a week or two apart can give both of you time to relish your friendship, share memories and inspiration, and ensure that you each receive the wisdom, guidance, and affirmation of the other. If you have a greater kindness to show, perhaps in a writing or modest gift of a personal item meaningful in some way to both of you, then all the better. Friends shouldn’t expect much if anything from you, but you may have much to give even in brief moments of last friendship.
Church
You’ve seen in the prior chapter that your church and its staff and members may be among your most-effective supporters and care providers in the course of your transcendence. Yet you may reciprocate in different ways, showing your church your own care for its members and body. You may have expressions of gratitude to give to your pastor or priest, the church staff, and members who mentored, guided, or served you. You may have items to donate to your church, whether Bibles, collections, icons, art, or musical instruments, that would be of peculiar value to your church while of little or no value to your family members or others. You may have an excess of funds, beyond those which your surviving spouse or children and grandchildren need, to donate or bequeath to your church that may make a difference in its mission and ministries. Find whatever way that you can to honor and show your respect and appreciation for the body of Christ.
Community
You’ve also seen in the prior chapter that your neighbors and other community members may find small ways to show their care for you on your final journey to transcendence. You may find ways to reciprocate. Your neighbors, those with whom you shared the ordinariness of life, may appreciate your visit, card, or call, including a few shared memories. You might share old photographs of the neighborhood parents and children, now all aged and mature. You might even have a sentimental item to give, such as something a neighbor gave you long ago that you’d like to return as a memory. You may have other community members outside your neighborhood with whom you shared meaningful events and had supportive relationships, whom you might wish to send a card and note, recalling their kindness. Taking the time and making these efforts, to the extent that you are capable, can help you remember the impact you had on your community and the impact it had on you. Your passage to the beyond can improve when you retain a larger perspective than that allowed by devoted contacts with your immediate family members and closest friends.
Attendants
Your demise may well bring attendants, whether doctors, nurses, aides, or other care providers, into your orbit, with whom you would have had no contact or relationship were it not for your peculiar needs. Those attendants may come to mean a great deal to you under your exigent circumstances, especially if you see them frequently and receive substantial relieving care from them over the course of a longer demise. They, of course, have no claim on you for, or expectation of, your care, other than whatever insurance coverage or fees to which their care may entitle them. Of course, cooperate in ensuring that they receive their due. Don’t withhold from them anything you owe. But you may also find from time to time that their care is less effective or generous than it could have been or should have been. While continuing to call your needs to their attention, show them what grace you can. If, on the other hand, your attendants do more than you expect, and you receive greater kindness and relief from them than you feel you deserve, show them whatever kindness and appreciation that you can muster. And share with them your faith and confidence in your transcendence. Do not, though, include material gifts of value, which would generally represent a violation of professional ethics to accept. Your appreciation and faith are sufficient.
Reflection
For whom do you desire to care most as your capacities diminish on your transcendent journey? Are you ready to show care for others with whom you are close if they do not show equivalent care for you? Do you recognize that your words can carry greater significance as you enter the final leg of your journey? What do you still need to arrange or do to care for your spouse after your departure? Are the arrangements you’ve already made sufficient, or do you need to adjust and update them? What do you still need to arrange or do to care for your children? Do you have adjustments to make to your estate plan or other documents, to ensure that they accurately reflect your last wishes? How can you bless your grandchildren, within their capacity to reckon with your demise and within what their parents would approve? Do you have kindnesses that you’d like to show your friends? Do you have items to donate or bequeath to your church that would be of special value to it? Do you have gratitude that you wish or need to express to your church community? Would you like to share memories with your neighbors or broader community contacts? Are you adequately expressing appreciation to your attendants, without offering them gifts of value?
Key Points
You control your care for others in demise, not how they care for you.
Words and actions in the course of your demise have a greater impact.
Choose your words carefully for their sensitivity and inspiration.
Devote your greatest care in your passing to your spouse’s interests.
Attend next to the best interests of your children in your passing.
Any care you show for your grandchildren is a special gift to them.
You may greatly encourage friends by permitting periodic visits.
You may also bless your church with your gratitude for fellowship.
You may also bless your neighbors and community with kindnesses.
Appreciate attendants providing care without offering valuable gifts.