Just after I introduced myself as his hospice chaplain, Charlie recounted the day he heard the news of the diagnosis. He was an active, 60-year-old retired salesman, married 35 years to Belle.
"It was a worst case scenario," he reported, "The cancer had spread everywhere." His doctors gave him six months. He and Belle were devastated. They phoned their oldest daughter who lived out-of-state, and told her the news through a veil of tears.
Daughter Susan sobbed and sobbed, and eventually managed to whisper, "but you can't die ... I'm pregnant and due in seven months!" It was Charlie's first grandchild -- the thought elated him. The worst day of his life was also the best.
And here he was -- a hospice patient. Charlie looked at me and acknowledged, "I may not live to see my grandchild, and I don't know what to do." But at our next meeting a few days later, he knew what he wanted and told me about it.
Charlie wanted life after death, but not in some far off, heavenly place. "I don't even know if there is such a thing as heaven," he admitted. "No one knows. But I do know that there is such a thing as love which holds us close to each other." He explained that most of all, he wanted to live in the mind and heart of his grandchild.
So he wrote down ten of his best and wisest thoughts: "Try your hardest," "Believe in yourself," "Be kind," and so forth, concluding with "Your grandpa loves you." He asked his wife, an experienced quilter, to embroider these sayings on a baby blanket.
Five months later, Charlie died. A week after the funeral, a baby shower was held for Susan. After the gifts were unwrapped, Belle presented the final gift. A quilted blanket for the baby, embroidered with wise sayings and a grandpa's love.
Grandpa's blanket, as it was called, became a daytime companion and a nighttime comfort to Charlie's granddaughter until the age of four. She carried it everywhere. It now hangs on her wall, and the last thing read to her at night are Charlie's reassuring words, "Your grandpa loves you."
She never met her grandfather Charlie ... but she knows him, and feels his love and presence every day.
Charlie got his wish. He lives, even after his death, in the mind and heart of his granddaughter. The baby blanket he created became a powerful way to pass on his legacy.
Legacy can refer to the totality of a person's life, or to the impact or influence of our lives in the world. For those near the end of life -- and for their loved ones -- legacy building offers powerful comfort at the end of life. It provides a way to ensure a continuing presence in this world and to leave something meaningful behind.
Psychologist Erik Erikson hypothesized that a late stage of personal development is generativity: the need to create a positive legacy that lives on after death -- to leave a part of the self to future generations to help guide their lives.
Legacy building provides a way to address fundamental spiritual questions: "How have I made a difference in the world?" "What is the value of my life?" "What is my place and purpose in the universe?
Typically, life after death implies going to heaven. A 2005 ABC News poll indicated that most Christians in the United States envision continued existence in a heavenly, other-worldly place after death.
However, the practice of legacy-building expands the way we think about afterlife.
For those whose spiritual worldview may not envision or emphasize a supernatural afterlife, legacy building can diminish existential anxiety about death. Legacy building provides "this-worldly" possibilities of eternal life through the indelible impact that we make on those around us. It provides hope of continuing existence through everlasting bonds or ongoing influence in the world.
The story of Charlie's legacy teaches us that life can transcend death, regardless of how we think about heaven. Nowadays, there are many ways that seriously ill patients, family members and counselors can do "legacy work" to bring grace and meaning to the end of life.
In recent years, the practice of writing an ethical will has become a popular and useful tool to assure continued presence and influence after death. Ethical wills are documents prepared before death that contain reflections, blessings, instructions, personal histories, or values to be passed on to others.
Also, "living eulogies" can provide great comfort to those facing the end of life. Messages, emails and videos can be sent to people who are seriously ill. Friends and family members can share stories and reminisce about meaningful times. These testimonies of enduring connections and contributions are powerful affirmations of life and legacy.
Counselors dealing with end of life issues increasingly rely on therapies that involve legacy building. In reminiscence therapy, the counselor encourages a patient to recall and share memories and past experiences.
Dignity therapy involves life-affirmation and legacy-building. It is more directive and structured than reminiscence, as a "generativity document" is produced after sessions of recalling and discussing life experiences.
Life review therapy is deeper and more evaluative. Patients reflect on the meaning of their lives, and come to terms with difficult aspects of their past. Typically, this process involves reframing the past in order to more gracefully confront death and more effectively cope with the end of life.
Life after death is often conceived as mysterious and other-worldly, but it is not necessarily so. We create an enduring legacy through day-to-day existence -- in who we are, in what we do, and in the totality of our lives. You don't have to believe in heaven to find life after death.
This post is adapted from Living with Grief®: Spirituality and End-of-Life Care, available from the Hospice Foundation of America's bookstore. This book is a companion piece to the Spirituality and End-of-Life Care educational program.
Hospice Foundation of America is dedicated to helping the millions of Americans each year who cope with terminal illness, death and grief. Our website serves as a well-regarded resource for information end-of-life care and grief.
Hospice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hospice care: Comforting the terminally ill - MayoClinic.com
get used to it.
I is right up there with being born.
After we die, we get used by other life forms, insects, plants, whatever.
So, yeah, in that sense we "live".
Other than that, when we die, it is the end, kaputz, no more - nada, zero, zilch.
But why is that so bad, if one has lived a good life? And, if one hasn't : Well! It's too late to worry about that.
What 'lives" on are our thoughts and the deeds we do - good and bad.
You can find heaven while you're alive........just ask any heavy drug user..
1 ) get someone to remember you so a 'memory of you' continues.
2 ) donate an organ so a piece of you gets to continue living.
Hallucinating an afterlife with higher beings or invisible supermen may be very comforting, but not very real ...
(fanned TheAntitheist)
Because no such thing has been proven to exist. However, our cells convert ATP, a chemical compound made from sugars in the body. ATP reacts with oxygen in the blood to create heat and kinetic energy using muscle cells. Different types of cells use ATP in different ways to support their function.
So no, our "Energy" is nothing like what you imply with your butterfly example. But instead its exactly like the Butterfly because we share a common organic chemistry with all forms of life on the planet.
There is nothing mystical about this as you suggest, and there is no "other way of being" for Humans.
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How can that be so? It's commonly known among the religious that relatively few are going to be allowed entrance into heaven. The OTHER "life after death" is YOU KNOW WHERE, and some of you had better pack accordingly, if you happen to believe in that.
The concept of legacy is an ego based concept and not in the same room as spirit. The idea of giving love while here in the natural is spirit experiencing a human experience not a human experiencing a spiritual experience. The motivation of being immortal is consciousness based - it is either spiritual = love or ego based = fear. Just like an archer cannot draw on two bows - nor or horsemen ride two stallions - we need to choose; ego or spirit. Most of us remain in ego....My latest book The Point of Power discusses thisconcept in depth. I hope you might take a moment to read it - I would so invite your feedback and remain honored by your participation. Warmly Peter
I've spent for too long living here in Sweden..nearly 20 years... to readily say what I think...in English but, I can tell you this much, it really doesn''t matter.. in the long view... what anyone thinks about me..cause when my time comes, I will face that alone...by myself, and not a single one of my many good friends, and wonderful relatives, my children, or my colleages will be there standing with me.
And, from what I understand from the Scriptures which is the only truly trusted source I have concerning the afterlife, I won't even be allowed to point my finger at any other person to justify what I did, and how I conducted myself, but will I alone will be held accountable for my own words and actions to Judge of all men.
And when we do, the world---for us. ceased to be. and those left who hold fast to the memory of us, while it may brings years and years of comfort and satisfaction to them, and those who are born after them, it helps us not at all. and that is the real point of our thoughts and hopes for the afterlife. I am sitting, breathing...alive... at my kitchen table and thinking I'd rather be live dog than a dead lion, cause only the dead know life is better...any life at all..even those who took theirs, now know this too. And when my time has come, and I must leave this mortal coil, I want to get up again some fine day in this same body I am living in now, and all the nice kind words this or any other Rabbi may offer me as solace won't and cannot change that....
I do expect that I will find joy in my legacy and the knowledge that my life will affect humanity across generations in ways that I cannot even imagine. This won't be a comfort to me after I die, but I don't think I'll need much comforting at that point.
I do not believe in an afterlife, but as your post suggests, I believe that our actions while we are living can last beyond our death in the memories of those that we have nurtured or impacted. It is up to us to insure that those memories are good ones and carry a positive message into the future.
this is not entirely true. the evidence is there but few very few seek.
most are comfortable in their existing beliefs.
we humans judge by appearance in spite of what the mystics, prophets, and others tell us.
attain understanding of the underlying reality of appearance and human life is no longer needed unless on a mission of compassion.