Coastal Empire

As we live on and on and on and on, there are more than enough reasons to smile. After five years of shepherding or bearing witness to family members and friends passing through their life’s last years, months and days, I have collected a few essential lessons.

We finally figure out that dying is going to be easy, but downtown parking will remain impossible.

Spending an afternoon on a cushy sofa or lounge chair, overlooking a sunny courtyard or a warm beach will be missed.

What will not be missed: the hypocrisy of government, the lying of politicians and professional sports.

Don’t worry about the afterlife. More important was, is, shall be a more central question: What am I doing here in the first place? It’s what you do on earth, especially the good deeds, that are important.

To be or not to be – that’s another good question.

Organized religion – meh.

The talent all of us should seek above all – living.

Appoint a health care surrogate, execute a will and an advanced medical directive, and give cherished things away while those to whom you give them may enjoy and cherish them.

Dying is easier if you have what many still do not have: access to excellent care and the resources to pay for it; supportive and loving family and friends; a bed in a place where visitors are welcome 24/7 – hospice. These make dying dignified.

Paris is the greatest place on earth.

Death comes with a guaranteed downtown or uptown parking spot.

Copyright © 2016 From My Isle Seat