Before We Say Goodbye: Preparing for a Good Death

BEFORE WE SAY GOODBYE

PRACTICAL GUIDANCE, INSPIRING STORIES AND PRAYERS TO HELP US PREPARE A GOOD DEATH

Ray Simpson

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Foreword

Introduction

The Things They Say about Dying

PART ONE

Befriend Death When You Are Young

There’s a Time to Give and a Time to go

The Secret of Life is the Secret of Death

Death Puts Life in Perspective

When Faced, Death Builds Valour

The Ache Inside Us

Make Death your Anam Cara

Start Now

Picture Death

Master the Fear of Death

The Faces of Death

See Eternity in a Grain of Sand

Live Life as a Journey

Start With Life’s Little Deaths

Practise Going to Sleep

Practise Making Transitions

Practise Being on your Deathbed

Practise Praying

Get to Know your body

Move with Life’s Rhythms

Come Through Rough Passages

Red, White and Blue Deaths

Reach for the Edges

Review your Life

Be Present to the Dying

Enjoy the Communion of Saints

Encounter Angels

Transformations

Be Prepared!

PART TWO

Grow Before You Go

Live Simply

Do it Now!

Fulfil your Destiny

Listen to your Soul Thoughts

Face Pain

Know your Life Story

Share your Life Story

Live Out of your Vulnerability

Speak Out your Anguish

Engage with the Stages of Life

Be a Pilgrim

Accumulate Timeless Treasure

Does Death Rob Life of its Meaning?

Become free to Move on

PART THREE

Go Prepared

What Will you Leave Behind?

Don’t Leave a Muddle

Make a Will

Apply the Golden Rule to your Descendants

Express your Feelings of Loss

Acknowledge the Stages of Grief

Be Real

Free the Trapped Spirit

Release Compassion

Listen to your Dreams

At the First Glimpse of Death’s Approach

The Healing Power of Acceptance

Prepare to Leave

Plan the Funeral

Celebrate a Life

When would you Like to be Remembered?

‘Honour Me, Don’t Humour Me’

How to Say What we Want to Say

Dear Grace, When I am Dying…

Saying our Goodbyes

Parting Gifts

Epitaphs

A Way to Meditate at Death

Fun on the Way out

Last Wishes

Final Words

Farewell Blessings

Anointed for Burial

Choose your Time to go

Early Exit or Encore?

On the Day Death Knocks at the Door

PART FOUR

Create a Good ‘Departure Lounge’

Draw up Your ‘Departure Lounge’ Guidelines

Anything to Declare?

Forgiveness Parlour

Music

Prayers

Angels

Songs

Poets’ Corner

Bible Readings

Things to Look at

Something to Hold

Diaries, Albums and Videos

A Private Place

Liturgy for the Great Passage

PART FIVE

The Other Side

The Long Jump

Gone Where?

Life is Just Beginning

When the Saints go Marching in

The Place of Resurrection

A Veil thin as Gossamer

The Morning After

Out of the Body Experiences

Life after Life

What is the other World Like?

What Happens after Death?

Images of Heaven

The Eternal Struggle of Love

The Voyage to the other Side

PART SIX

Inspiring Deaths

Jesus (D. 33)

Ignatius (D. 107)

Columba (D. 597)

Moninne (D. C. 518)

Aidan (D. 651)

Cuthbert (D. 687) and Ramon (D. 2000)

Hilda (D. 680)

Caedmon (D. 680)

A Boy (D. C. 690)

Bede (D. 735)

Mum (D. 1971)

Colin

A Dancer (D. PRE-1994)

Norma (D. 1991)

Nigel (D. 1993)

The ‘Sweet Pea’ (D. 1999)

A Blessing for Death

References

Some Helpful Books

Pull-out Forms

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

FOREWORD

by Jean Peart

I am so grateful to God for leading me to this book, and so grateful to Ray for writing it. It was such a help and comfort to me when my dear mother was dying. The prayers in this book gave reassurance, comfort and confidence as I stayed with my mother during her last weeks to continually pray over her and, I believe, to ease her passage to heaven.

My mother’s passing was so peaceful and gentle (just like a candle going out). She indeed had death without pain, death without fear, death without death. A quote that has spoken to me over the last year is this: ‘One should spend one’s life contemplating one’s deathbed.’ Even the staff at the nursing home were amazed at the wonderful passing my mother had. The peace at the time of her passing and afterwards in the nursing home was like a blanket of peace that descended over the whole place for several hours.

This book is both deeply spiritual and very practical – a wonderful aid for those who care. I kept it in my handbag for a month, and sat with it in my hand through the last days with my mother.

May God bless and keep all who use this book.

Jean Peart

The Open Gate

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne

INTRODUCTION

Life is a journey from the womb to the tomb.

There are things to learn that make the journey, even at its end, worthwhile.

To live well requires us to die well.

If we are to die well, we need to prepare for it.

We are all dying. Some of us die sooner than others.

The best time to start to prepare for death is when we are young.

Please don’t die without having lived.

Please don’t depart without having said truly satisfying goodbyes.

The airliner went into a nose dive. A maniac had attacked the pilot and broken the autopilot. Every passenger was convinced they were plunging to certain death. Lady Anabel Goldsmith was on that plane. In seats behind her were her son Zak, her daughter Jemima Khan, and her grandchildren. A myriad things she would have liked to have said and done before they parted this life flashed through her mind, but it seemed too late now. She had time to utter only one word to them: ‘Goodbye.’ By some miracle the plane, only seconds from disaster, was saved. Lady Anabel was given a second chance to get things right before she said goodbye.

This book offers us a chance to get things right before we say goodbye. It may be our only chance. Although we can run away from almost anything in life, we cannot run away from death. So much has been written about how to cope with other people’s deaths. So little has been written about preparing for our own death. Those books that have been written are not the sort you would hold in your hand, or keep in your heart, when you are too weak to take in new information. This simple, practical guide comes from one heart to another. It calls us to live and to die well, to be good stewards of our short time on earth.

There are as many ways of dying as there are people. This little book will help you to plan your final journey, your farewells, your funeral and your will in a way that will uniquely bless you and those around you. Some are too fearful or thoughtless to do this. This book will help you to do it gently, in small doses.

Dying itself is a journey. We cannot halt it, but we may influence the spirit in which we make it. We can learn from enlightened people who have made glorious exits. We can learn from practitioners who have studied the cycles of dying. We can learn from the caring insights of the hospice movement. And now that hospital and funeral services are business oriented, we can be part of a citizens’ movement to take back responsibility for our own and our loved ones’ departures.

THE THINGS THEY SAY ABOUT DYING

To die well is the chief part of virtue.

GREEK PROVERB

A good death does honour to a whole life.

ITALIAN PROVERB

It is a great art to die well, and to be learned by those in health.

JEREMY TAYLOR, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, 1651

Death can cause a human being to become what he or she was called to become; it can be, in the fullest sense of the word, an accomplishment.

FRANCOIS MITTERAND

Death, so far from being cruel, is an act of love rounding off our brief testing here.

ELIZABETH MYERS

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil.

JONATHAN SWIFT

Lord, grant that my last hour may be my best hour.

OLD ENGLISH PRAYER

If you would endure life, be prepared for death.

SIGMUND FREUD

Prepare for your death.

ST COLUMBA

When we are dead, and people weep for us and grieve, let it be because we touched their lives with beauty and simplicity.

JACOB P. RUDIN

Is there not a certain satisfaction in the fact that natural limits are set to the life of the individual, so that at the conclusion it may appear as a work of art?

ALBERT EINSTEIN

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Dying is like being stuck in a traffic jam.

There is a crown for those who endure.

ANON

Blessed be God for our sister, the death of the body.

ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Death is the great adventure beside which moon landings and space trips pale into insignificance.

JOSEPH BAYLY

*

Mortal loss is an Immortal gain.

The ruins of time builds Mansions in Eternity.

WILLIAM BLAKE

PART ONE

* * *

BEFRIEND DEATH WHEN YOU ARE YOUNG

What’s brave, what’s noble,Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion,And make death proud to take us.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

Antony and Cleopatra, ACT IV, SCENE 16

THERE’S A TIME TO GIVE AND A TIME TO GO

For everything there is a season,and a time for every matter under heaven:a time to be born, and a time to die;a time to plant, and a time to pluck up…a time to seek, and a time to lose.

ECCLESIASTES 3:1,2,6 NRSV

The advice that most shaped me as a young man was this: Do not waste your life on empty pleasures or burn out prematurely for some great idea; let your life be like a candle, which gives of itself consistently until, when it has given all it has, it flickers out.

I want to give the best that I have at every stage of life. In order to give my best, I must also learn to receive from others at every level of my being. When I have given all that I have to give, and received all that I have to receive, I will flicker out in a glow of fulfilment.

Of course, none of us will achieve this 100 per cent, but it is good to aim for it. We will learn through trial and error. Life affords us opportunities to learn from our mistakes and, whatever our failings, to increase our levels of giving and receiving.

If we live like this, dying can feel like fulfilment rather than theft.

THE SECRET OF LIFE IS THE SECRET OF DEATH

To live and die well – this is surely the supreme aim. I used to think that I might do one, or neither, but certainly not both. Now I know that the secret of one is also the secret of the other.

A professional rugby player told me that the secret of being a successful player is to go all out, to keep your eye on the ball, and not to hold back through fear of injury or failure.

Some people go all out in life, but they mess it up because they do not keep their eye on the ball – they lose sight of the end of life. Others hold back because they fear they will get hurt or fail.

I used to hold back because I feared I might lose my security or status. A counsellor advised me to visualize the worst scenario that could happen to me. I did so. Then he challenged me to face that worst scenario. I did so. Having faced it, I became willing to go through with it. Even though the worst scenario did not occur, facing it set me free to live fully in any scenario.

It is like that with life. Death stalks us as an unconscious paralyser, even when we are young. If we face this worst scenario of death now, it frees us to live at our maximum throughout our lives.

If we live fully, we shall die fulfilled.

If we are champions in life, we shall be champions in death.

DEATH PUTS LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE

You may think you can get away with anything, that nothing can touch you, not even death. This ability to get away with things may seem to be your pride and glory.

The truth is, you will have to submit to death as surely as seed, once it is fully grown as wheat, is cut down and ground into flour. ECHOING ISAIAH 28

The prophet Isaiah believed God was speaking along these lines to ‘successful’ people who never gave a thought to anything or anyone else.

It is better to sow seeds of wheat rather than wild oats now, so that these will bring a good harvest in the future. Only so will the harvest of our lives be a good experience.

What you sow, you reap. What you give out, you receive back.

Living our life in the light of eternity gives us perspective. It sorts out our priorities.

WHEN FACED, DEATH BUILDS VALOUR

A parent whose baby died said this: ‘Our baby’s death made me realize how thin and fragile are the surface things of life which we rely upon. Our baby’s death made me less tolerant of arrogance. It made me value respect.’

A daring hit-and-run robber named Moses, who had killed people in pursuit of his crimes, reformed his life and lived as a hermit in the desert. He became a soul friend to young people, who joined him in the desert.

One day his desert brothers learned that an armed band was on its way to loot their dwellings and leave them for dead. They urged that everyone should make a quick escape.

‘I’ll stay here,’ Moses said. ‘I have waited so long for this day. My death will be a fitting reminder of Jesus’ saying, “Those who use the sword shall die by the sword.”’

In fact, the murderers arrived before any of them could escape. Seven brothers were killed.

There was one brother, however, who was not in the hut with them. He hid under some palm fronds and observed how they died. He saw seven crowns, each one coming to rest on the head of a brother.

Olympic athletes who know that a medal awaits the winner go all out. To know that there is a crown stirs us to valour – to good deeds, heroic acts, unstinting service, and to the noble bearing of suffering.

THE ACHE INSIDE US

Deep inside every human being there is an ache. We can try to drown it in restless activity, drug it with addictive substances, or isolate it by putting up defences. If we do this, our life becomes sound and fury, signifying nothing.

One philosopher describes this ache as ‘the existential loneliness’. This ache may become acute when someone close to us dies, or in the season of falling leaves and encroaching dark, or when we leave behind some familiar part of our lives, or when we find ourselves alone.

It may even throb when something triggers a sense of mystery – we fall in love, we give birth to a child, we observe a glory of creation, we witness a tragedy on our TV screen.

Perhaps we have a strong desire to hold on to some special feeling or experience, yet deep down we know that this is as futile as pretending that a snapshot can be the reality of every morning after.

Some never recognize the ache for what it is. The reason for this ache, in the words of one writer, is that ‘in the middle of life we are in death’. We want to achieve, to possess so much. A capacity for life seems at times without limit. Yet we know deep down that nothing will last. It will all fade away.

Our days are like grass.

We flourish like a flower of the field.

The wind passes over it and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more.

PSALM 103:15,16

That is the ache. The ache is there as a ‘prompt’. It prompts us to accept our mortality. Only when we accept that we shall lose it all will we be free to live fully, not as a right, but as a gift.

MAKE DEATH YOUR ANAM CARA

In 1997 John O’Donohue wrote a book entitled Anam Cara which became a bestseller. Anam cara is the Gaelic for ‘soul friend’. The soul friend of his book is not a person, it is death. O’Donohue writes:

Death is the great wound in the universe, the root of all fear and negativity. Friendship with our death would enable us to celebrate the eternity of the soul which death cannot touch… 1

Continually to transfigure the faces of your own death ensures that at the end of your life your physical death will be no stranger, robbing you against your will of the life that you have had. You will know its face intimately. Since you have overcome your fear, your death will be a meeting with a lifelong friend from the deepest side of your nature.

Death can be understood as the final horizon. Beyond there, the deepest well of your identity awaits you. In that well, you will behold the beauty and light of your eternal face.

Benjamin Franklin understood death in this way:

A man is not completely born until he is dead … We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us, while they afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or in doing good to our fellow creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us pain instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an encumbrance, and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way. 2

A great nineteenth-century Russian spiritual director, Ivanov Macarios, wrote to a widow:

I thank you having revealed to me the sadness of your griefstricken heart; a great radiance comes over me when I share with others their sorrow. Complete, perfect, detailed compassion is the only answer I can give to your tender love of me that has led you, at such a time, to seek me out in my distant, humble hermitage.3

Claire Evans was dying, leaving behind a husband and an 11-year-old son. I recall her saying something like this to me: ‘I don’t know exactly what is coming next. But throughout my life I have listened to a voice deep inside me, and whenever I have followed this voice I have found that there is a response which makes me believe that the world is, at heart, a friend.’

Practise making a friend of death in every way you can, especially by listening to the voice deep inside you.

START NOW

‘I don’t want to think about death,’ a 20-year-old friend told me. ‘I want to live all out and just go out in a twinkle.’

He thought he had no problem, but so do alcoholics who refuse help. They are in denial. A first step in the Alcoholics Anonymous rehabilitation programme is to recognize that there is a problem. It is like that with death.

Ernest Becker, in his Pulitzer prize-winning book Denial of Death, asserts that the reality of our mortality constitutes the fundamental human terror, and our effort to come to terms with it ‘is a mainspring of human activity – activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man’. In other words, if we don’t face this when we are young, we may spend the rest of our lives handcuffed to death rather than being truly free to be ourselves.

Another reason to start preparing for a good death when we are young is that we may die young. Millions of young people are killed through war, accident or illness each year.

WHY DO PEOPLE DIE YOUNG?

It is not a bad idea to start thinking about this: it begins to familiarize us with death. Here are some answers people give to this question:

• Good and evil happenings affect the whole human family, like the sun and the rain, without distinction.

• God wants a variety of people in heaven, so young as well as aged mortals need to enter it.

• In the words of a dying boy to his mother, ‘Don’t worry, Mum, my body’s only my reflection.’