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In one of her columns, Rev. Char Childers tells about a valuable service she provides to her Memphis Hospice patients. She calls it a “life review” and the purpose is to help the person feel better about the life they have lived. I can see how helpful it could be to dying persons to have a sensitive person like Char to assist in pulling up some of their special memories of yesterday. I think one reason some people have a hard time dying is a feeling that they have not really “done their thing.” No one wants to go until they have sung their own life song. Some dying people feel good about what they have been able to accomplish. Like an old man who had never had any interest in religion and was finding it difficult to face death. The Christian counselor was unable to comfort him because the old boy had never understood Christian theology. So the chaplain asked a Hindu staff member to talk to him about the Hindu concept of “Maya,” or “illusion.” The Hindu carefully explained their idea that this life is full of illusion and all the time she was talking he just blinked his eyes trying to understand. Finally he raise up on one elbow and said, “Well, you may be right that my life was a big illusion but all I’ve got to say is I sure made a big splash where I thought I was.” Some dying people don’t feel that they have made a big splash. They need someone like Char to pull out those forgotten pieces of their lives, those successes, those jobs they enjoyed and did well, those children they raised and gave a decent start in life, those people they loved deeply and made happy. It hits me that we all might benefit from a life review. There’s no need to wait until the end of life to do it. Strangely you are more likely to forget your successes that your failures. Part of it is that people tend to remind you of your failures more often. Another part of it is that we remind ourselves of our failures more often. It is a perverse part of our nature where we need to develop more awareness. If you want to take a day to do a life review it will be worth the time but right now just do a short version and it will convince you of the value of it. First, just list five people you have loved very deeply. Since love is the greatest thing in the world, anyone who has loved has not lived in vain. Take a few moments and be grateful for the love you were able to share. List five unselfish things you have done in your life. If it is nothing but a United Way contribution, I can tell you as a former school social worker that those gifts make a big difference. I had a little boy named Charlie who had no father, a mentally ill sister and a retarded mother. Once I got him a Big Brother, he took off like a rocket. Someone gave the money to United Way to help save Charlie. List a few jobs you held that you feel you did well. It doesn’t have to be something sensational. Very little of the vital work of this world is sensational. If everyone decided they wanted to do nothing but sensational work, a million mundane but completely necessary services would not be done. They world would go to hell overnight. There would be no garbage picked up, no packages delivered, no babies changed, no old people bathed in nursing homes and no food served. Epidemics would rage and people would starve. Don’t die but get yourself feeling so good that you will be able to do it without regret when your time comes. It will feel better.
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