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5 End of Life Lessons

Elder Suicide: What to Look for

When we are forced to think about the end of our lives, we get nervous. We would rather think about anything else. But, you would be surprised at how our thinking will change when we are facing the end of our life. Here are 5 end of life lessons from experts.

5 End of Life Lessons

 

5 End of Life Lessons

 

Healthy people often focus on all the details in their busy lives and lose the ability to put things in perspective. You need to adopt different attitudes and values that people who are dying have. This can make your life better.

1. Adjust Your Priorities

It’s easy to take your friends and family for granted when you are busy. It seems like everything else comes first. Remember to stop and appreciate any meaningful relationships you have.

2. Make Time for Loved Ones

Again, when you are busy, you can forget to make time for those who are close to you. If you make them most important, you will show that you care. It will also make you feel less stressed out.

3. Have Meaningful Conversations

Having emotional talks is hard. It’s the last thing we want to do sometimes.

You may not like to apologize, look for forgiveness, or give feelings of love or thankfulness often. It’s awkward and makes you vulnerable.

Or maybe you think the people you love already know how you feel.

It’s good to have these conversations though. It can make you feel closer to those around you.

4. Don’t Hesitate to Share Deep Feelings

Like with meaningful conversations, we don’t often share any deep feelings that we have either. In fact, many families don’t talk about feelings unless something bad happened.

If someone you love died and you didn’t share how you feel, you would be filled with regret.

But, if you do share your feelings, especially before someone’s passing, it will bring you closer to them.

5. Prepare for the Worst

It’s always good to be prepared. This means having all the proper documentation that’s needed for your passing.

This can mean electing someone to make medical decisions for you if you aren’t able to do it yourself. Or sign “do not resuscitate” paperwork.

It’s hard to do, but ultimately it helps your loved ones. It makes them less stressed and they know what you want. They don’t have to guess.

Read more here.

5 Life Lessons from the Oldest Seniors Around

How to Care for Seniors During Covid-19

People think that the elderly don’t have any lessons to give, but they’re wrong. Author, John Leland interviewed seniors in his book Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old. Here are 5 life lessons from the book that the oldest seniors around gave.

5 Life Lessons from the Oldest Seniors Around

5 Life Lessons From the Oldest Seniors

 

Here are a few simple things you can do to enhance your life as you get older.

1. Don’t Let Age Define You

The seniors in this book defy cliches and expectations. These people ranging from 87 to 92, are full fledge people with their own personalities.

They are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, wives, and husbands. Age doesn’t change them. It’s not a problem to be fixed. It’s a stage of life like anything else.

2. Still Set Personal Goals

Just because you get older doesn’t mean that you have to stop being ambitious. Whether it’s personal or for something more professional, setting goals will keep you strong.

It can even be as small as finding something that makes you happy everyday.

3. Focus on What You Can Do

It’s easy to get stuck in a downward spiral of all the things you’ve lost. Leland found that in this age group, people who do things that interest them have the most satisfaction.

They focus on what they can do instead of what they can’t.

4.  Be Adaptable

Don’t let a change of circumstance limit your life. Just because one thing changes, doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.

For example, someone who has a hard time moving around, may decide to use a wheelchair. While some may think this is restrictive, it opens up their world. They can go more places and be comfortable.

5. Embrace the Changes in Your Life

Change is hard, and as much as we want to pretend we have control, we don’t. For some people who are older, their roles will change. They might be getting help from their kids, instead of the other way around.

This isn’t a bad thing though. You can still be emotionally supportive of those who are helping you physically.

Read more about these lessons here.

Meet an Artist Who Draws End of Life Visions

Meet an Artist Who Draws End of Life Visions

Lynn Randolph is an artist with a mission. At the Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, she draws the end of life visions of the dying. She creates brief, but intimate, relationships with these dying patients and their caregivers.

Meet an Artist Who Draws End of Life Visions

“Heaven,” a colored pencil sketch of the scene a patient described. Lynn Randolph

The Art

 

Her work is sponsored by a nonprofit organization called Collage: The Art for Cancer Network, which was inspired by a Georgia O’Keeffe quote, “I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way, things I had no words for.”

Randolph talks to people from all walks of life. There was a man in his 60s who grew up near beaches. She asked him her standard question of if he had an image in his mind that had meaning for him. He told her a raindrop he saw before he was admitted, he talked about how far it traveled and it endured a storm to be there at that moment.

So she pondered the image, she writes:

I thought about the image. The drop would dissolve and be absorbed into the earth, like all of us. I drew what he was describing: a window looking out on subtle shapes of trees and bushes, a narrow path obscured by slanting lines of rain, and in the center of the pane, a raindrop. He took the drawing and held it closely. There was his raindrop, a small oval shape on a piece of white paper. He looked at me as if we had discovered the universe.

She asks the patients what they love, what has meaning to them. Because of this she has drawn everything from a beach to Mickey Mouse with angel wings.

Why She Does This

 

Randolph’s husband was a patient at MD Anderson and died in 2000. She was heartbroken. It took time and many paintings to process her grief. Which gave her the idea that art could help others. While at first doctors were skeptical, they now embrace what Randolph can do. They even refer her to patients.

See Randolph’s beautiful artwork here.

Single People are Concerned About End of Life Arrangements

Dogs in Funeral Homes

Older single people are concerned about end of life arrangements. End of life arrangements can be difficult to think about, let alone execute. Then there is the matter of taking care of their affects after the fact. Many don’t want to place the burden on their loved ones and are worried what’s going to happen. Here are some tips to ease single people’s mind.

Single People are Concerned About End of Life Arrangements

Single People are Concerned About End of Life Arrangements

 

Try to pre-plan your own funeral arrangements. Many people say they want to but few actually do. A research study by the Funeral and Memorial Information Council said “69 percent of adults over the age of 40 indicated they would prefer to pre-arrange their own service; however, only 17 percent had made arrangements.”

Married or not married this is helpful because you will know that it’s taken care of and there will be less stress for everyone involved. Check out cemeteries and funeral homes to check out pricing and planning options. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of experts.

Talk about last wishes with people you trust, whether friends or siblings. Have a discussion about how you would like to be remembered. You can even bring someone you trust with you as you tour cemeteries and funeral homes. Try to be okay with death and that one day you will die. It will hard but hopefully preplanning things will bring you peace of mind.

Check out the whole article here.

Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse, helps take care of people the last few months of their lives. She started to notice a pattern with the regrets her patients had, so she decided to start recording them. Here are the top 5 regrets of the dying, that she has seen. Maybe we can all learn something from them.

Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

 

The first is not living the life they wanted, instead living the life that was expected of them. It’s easy to look back at your life and see all the things that you didn’t do. It’s hard to realize that there isn’t time to go and do those things.

The second regret is that people wished they hadn’t worked so much. This particular regret came from every male patient that Ware had, while some women mentioned it, they were not the breadwinner of the family. Many of the men missed their partner’s presence and their kids growing up.

Third, is that wish they could have expressed their emotions more. Whether they were afraid of getting hurt, or trying to keep the peace they shoved their feelings down.

The fourth regret is that they wished they saw their friends more.

The fifth, and final, regret is that they wish they had let themselves be happier.

Check out the whole article here.