What do most people say on their deathbed? They don't say, "I wish I'd made more money." What they say is, I wish I'd spent more time with my family and done more for society or my community." David Rubenstein, American businessman
John woke up this morning worried. He fretted about what’s called a “classification” talk in Rotary. John decided to join Rotary recently. When one joins Rotary, a service club, the person is assigned a classification based on their occupation or primary source of income. However, with small clubs, these talks are mostly a chance to let others know about your education, career history, why you chose your profession, your hobbies and general background. Though intimidating, it can be a lot of fun. Meaningful.
As John and I talked about the outline of his life. We started with his childhood of skiing in the winter and biking around his neighborhood in the summer... stopping along the railroad tracks to chat with hobos, then on to see his neighbors... occasionally singing while strumming his ukelele.
Then we talked about him choosing to be a dentist because of the outsized impact of a neighbor, Doctor Marvin Speer, a general practitioner, who represented everything good about serving humanity, but recommended dentistry where one could serve others, and also get a full night of sleep. And his own dentist, Ernie Chandler, had said he had never worked a day in his life because dentistry was such fun for him.
John ended up being the 1962 U.S. Junior Nordic Combined Ski Champion in Steamboat Springs, Colorado thanks to the little ski hill in Leavenworth and the dedicated Norwegians who settled there and created the area including its ski jumps, knew a lot about skiing, and on occasion yelled out a skiing tip or too.
We went on tracking his college years, the ups and downs – the mentors. Then his years in the Army and travelling around Europe, marrying me. Then came the dental years of seeing himself as more than a dentist, more nobly (my words) as a person charged with a mission to improve the quality of life of each person he had the opportunity to touch. (We later circled back to his smoke jumping and his years of coaching kids' sports - some newish ones for him like pole vaulting and soccer. Somehow he made it, we now wonder how, out of his dental office religiously to attend the kids' events)
We continued talking about the retirement years of mentoring grandchildren and doing what he can to create community and world peace. John believes in the ripple effect – that a small act of kindness CAN ripple through a family, a community, a country, and a world.
This all took about 4 or 5 minutes. For us both, it was a fun little trip and life review. It felt meaningful.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, when we live a meaningful life, we move way up the ladder toward the good life according to many philosophers and contemporary psychologists. And, as we get older, closer to our deaths, to look back over our lives and say, “yes, it had meaning", can be emotionally and psychologically healing.
Let’s review for a moment the research on the process of reflecting on our lives as we get closer to our deaths. We get most of the research from people who worked in palliative care and hospice care experts like Bronnie Ware, the Australian care nurse who recorded the top regrets of the dying and others like like Dr. Ira Byock (My personal favorite. He is the founder and chief medical officer of Providence St Joseph Health Institute for Human Caring in Torrance California. He was the director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. He wrote Dying Well: The prospect for growth at the end of life and The Four Things That Matter Most). Also Dr. Atul Gawande has written several good books; the one I am focusing on here is Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.
Here’s my synopsis of their work.
First –
What Matters Most to People on Their Deathbeds? Relationships. Relationships. Relationships! Surely we get that by now.
People consistently express that love and connection are their deepest sources of meaning as well. Regrets often include not spending enough time with loved ones and working too much at the expense of relationships. Many wish they had forgiven others or sought forgiveness—reconciliation becomes a high priority.
Ira Byock, in his book The Four Things That Matter Most, identifies four key phrases that people need to say before they die which helps them find closure and peace:
Please forgive me.
I forgive you.
Thank you.
I love you.
Folks wished they had stayed in touch with friends (but had not kept connected due to pride or busyness). Those who did reconnect with loved ones in their final days often found deep peace and joy.
Second -
Many reflect on meaning and spiritual questions. Even those who weren’t religious often seek a sense of connection to something greater than themselves. They want to think about what they contributed to others to make the world a better place, to transcend themselves.
And here is where the work by Dr. William Breitbart, a 73-year-old psychiatrist has become interesting to me. I am only touching on it. He has devised a quick meaning-centered psychotherapy for the dying which helps them reflect on their lives, their lives’ meaning, and how they lived their lives with purpose (what I know at this point is that it has to do with our choice of attitude, our ability to connect with life, and with our legacy). When people do reflect on their lives in these ways, they find perspective and peace. I’ll get back to that in a later blog and share what I find.
Let me take a break here and just point out one rather interesting thing. Do you see something that is not here? Do you see people wishing they had accumulated more wealth? That’s just not showing up evidently. Bad news for the likes of Musk and Bezos. We might keep that in mind before we come to the end of our journey.
People on their deathbeds did talk about how they wish they had allowed themselves to be happier, that they fretted too much about things outside their control; they followed societal or family expectations too much and did not dip into their personal passions and dreams enough.
What I’m talking away from this dying and near death research is that relationships are primary, of course! AND there are things we can do to improve them even at the last minute. My mother, in her very last days, forgave her son (my brother) who had already died.
The other big thing to remember is that we can gain meaning even toward the very end of our lives - for example, like working through those four things (Please forgive me, I forgive you, thank you, I love you).
We have some big things to come back to in following blogs on relationships and meaning. For now I’ll close with one simple thing we can do to create meaning and improve our relationships. (Relationships and meaning. They are so very intertwined.)
Be kind. Yes, just be kind. And here's a ridiculousy easy way to do it. Hold the door open for someone, anyone. Make eye-contact. Smile. It’s also the secret to making the world a kinder place in 5 seconds according to researchers. AND it heals us!
Researchers have found that this opening a door behavior does in fact create a ripple effect, people do pay it forward. Studies report that after having the door opened for them by a smiling person who makes eye contact, 84 percent of those people expressed gratitude and 64 percent stopped to help a person who dropped a bunch of pens.
Additionally, one of the researchers, Dr. Antonio Damasio (some may recognize his name, a quite famous neuroscientist still hard at work at 85! His most famous book which was a game changer in behavioral economics was Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain), said, “It is not only the recipient of the act or gift who gains, but also the doer or giver. When you are courteous to another person, or when you offer gifts, you are doing something that is good for you. Interestingly, it can be rewarding for yourself, and it can reduce stress. It can actually be good for your health.”
Let me expand from opening doors to kindness in general because, as I mentioned, kindness can be a route to both good relationships and meaning.
Last night at our Cashmere community meal many interesting and kind things happened. The Rotarians were cooking, former Seahawk player Rueben Mayes and Dr. Gene Sharratt (with all sorts of works of kindness in his resume) were eating, visiting (including gently and respectfully chatting with a man suffering from schizophrenia), and helping to clean up alongside others.
Randy Smith, a Rotarian and PUD (Public Utility District) commissioner was there. Randy had just returned from six days of doing PUD related work in Washington D.C.
When Randy went to the airport parking lot, he saw that his car was covered with a tarp-like thing. He was sure a window was knocked out and perhaps a burglary had occurred. Instead, he found a hastily scribbled note. As it turned out a TSA officer named John Monaco noticed that he had left a car window down. It was raining “pretty good”, so the officer had decided to cover Randy's car!
Randy was blown away. Dumbfounded by that act of kindness. Then, later, the former Seahawk, Rueben signed and gave Randy a football as a gift for his adopted grandson. When I last saw Randy as he was happily heaving out two hefty bags of garbage from the community meal, he was beaming. And so was I.
How might we journey together to The Good Life with relationships, meaning, and kindness front and center… do a little life reflection AND simply choose to do a kindness like open a door, make eye contact, smile - start a healing ripple effect?
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