Gratitude


Thanksgiving...a day set aside in the United States to cook and feast with friends and family. It's also a day to stop and notice the bounty we are given on a daily basis, but often miss in the cacophony of life's busyness. On this day of gratitude, I invite you to spend a few minutes to binge on this calorie-free smorgasboard of natural beauty and thanks lovingly captured by film maker, Louie Schwartzberg. I promise your heart will be filled with a bit more gratitude by the time you finish watching....Happy Thanksgiving. (click here to view Gratitude by Louie Schwartzberg)


Engage with Grace this Thanksgiving


Each Thanksgiving since 2008 I have donated my blog to an initiative called: Engage with Grace. This year is no exception. There is never the perfect opportunity to talk about end of life issues and it may seem especially incongruous on a holiday set aside for giving thanks, yet why not Thanksgiving? End of life discussions shouldn't be one size fits all or even one time conversations, they should evolve and change as life changes. They are talks from the heart, conversations about the values we hold dear, an opportunity to share our life narrative with our loved ones -- what better time than Thanksgiving weekend to share this gift of listening and sharing? So I invite you to do something a bit unconventional this Thanksgiving, perhaps begin a new tradition, alongside the green bean casserole, share Engage with Grace and let the conversation begin.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Pam


Most of us find ourselves pretty fascinating… flipping through photos and slowing down for the ones where we’re included, tweeting our favorite tidbits of information, facebook-ing progress on this or that…

We find other people captivating as well.  In fact, there’s a meme going around on facebook where people share a handful of things that most people don’t know about them – and there’s a great joy in learning these tidbits about the friends and family we think we know so well.
This Thanksgiving, we’re asking our friends and family to try this exercise, but with a twist – we want to know how they’d answer just five questions on their end-of-life preferences.


theoneslide

What? Are you CRAZY? Talk about how you’d want to die over Thanksgiving?  Yup – that’s exactly what we’re suggesting.   You know why?  Because this is a conversation you absolutely want to have exactly when you DON’T need to have it… and it’s a conversation you need to have with your loved ones.   Our hope for you this Thanksgiving is that you’ll have the luxury of checking both those boxes.

As humans, we’re all pretty fascinating, and exploring what matters to each of us under different circumstances can be a captivating conversation…and captivating conversations are part of what turkey dinners are all about.  It’s also a vital one – there will be few times in our lives where ‘getting it right’ is more important than at the end of them.

There are also few greater gifts you can give to your loved ones, and they to you, than making sure these lives we are living with such ferocious intent have the luxury of ending the same way.
Engage with Grace is a way to help get the conversation about end of life started – a way to Engage in this topic with Grace.  Just five simple questions about our end of life preferences that we can all commit to being able to answer – for ourselves, for our loved ones.  Take a quick look – do you know how you would answer?  Could you answer for your loved ones?   There is no wrong answer – It’s only wrong if you don’t know your answers … or if you haven’t shared them.

Coming together over the dinner table to talk about the important stuff is part of our DNA…and it’s where so much of the good stuff happens.  We connect, we share, we learn, we laugh, we fall in love, out of love, we fight and make up, we celebrate, we (maybe even) cry.  If this Thanksgiving turns out not to be your thing, then pick another dinner.  Check out the genius Death over Dinner movement started by our dear friend Michael Hebb to help make that happen.  Thousands of dinners happening across the country – from cool hipsters to the very dearest grandparents coming together to think hard, eat well, and make sure we nail this end of life thing by making sure we’re talking about it.  We double dog dare you to have a Death Dinner – and not enjoy it.

Know what else?  What we want at the end of our lives often changes as we go through them… a mum of toddlers may find she’d opt for more intensive treatment options, while a great-grandfather may feel more comfortable choosing quality of life related treatment… so have this conversation once, then keep having it.

None of us are planning for anything less than living forever – so until one of us is smart enough to make that happen (go Google!) – let’s at least commit to this: we live our life with intent – we can end our life with that same honor.  70% of us want to die at home, only 30% of us do.  Each of us will only die once – make sure you get to die the way you want. Then make sure that’s a gift you give to your loved ones as well.

Just five questions.  Just get started.

Could there be a more important conversation to have this Thanksgiving? Nope. Maybe that’s why they call it talkin’ turkey.

Pulling Back the Bow and Releasing the Arrow


 woman shooting arrow"You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and he bends you with his might
that his arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies,
so he loves also the bow that is stable." ~Kahlil Gibran 

This excerpt from Kahlil Gibran's On Children, echoes in my mind today.  My daughters are now adults and this month has been one of great happiness, pride, and inevitable change.  Our eldest daughter became engaged to a wonderful man last week and our youngest daughter is embarking on her first teaching position as a second grade teacher in Ohio next week.

I am mindful of the moments of joy and also of the moments of longing for the past, holding tightly to the arrows and resisting their release: the age old parental dilemma. To know when to let go and when to hold on is difficult; it challenges us to relinquish control and embrace vulnerability. And so, it is with a heart filled with pride and gratitude for my daughters, Kim and Jen, that I pull back the bow and release the arrows, watching them soar with strength, beauty and joy into the future.