1: Randall was frustrated.
“Everyone wants to know how I’m doing, if I’m sleeping, and what treatments I’m having,” Diane Button writes in her wonderful book What Matters Most: Lessons the Dying Teach Us About Living.
“Don’t they understand this is the this is the last think in the world I want to talk about?” Randall said.
“I want to talk about life, and love, and how everyone is doing. I want to reminisce and laugh, not sit here focused on the fact that I have cancer and I’m dying.”
Randall was tired of the sad faces and forced smiles.
“What happened to the ordinary greeting with a big hug, genuine smiles, and an exchange of upbeat and enthusiastic conversations about life? I miss that.”
Diane is an end-of-life doula. Her suggestion to Randall? He should write a note and post it on his door. Which is what they did.
Here’s what Randall wrote:
Yes, I have cancer.
No, I am not dead.
OK, now that we have had the “cancer conversation,”
please leave your sadness at the door
and come on in!
Please tell me about your life.
Tell me a joke or a story.
Share a memory of our lives together.
I love you,
Randall
What happened next? The quality of the visits improved immediately.
“He laughed and cried listening to the long-forgotten stories his visitors shared,” Diane writes.
“One friend reminded him of the handshake they made up in college, and they began doing it at each visit.
“A cousin shared the story about how Randall taught him a ‘very strange way’ to tie his shoes when he was a little boy and Randall was thirteen,” she notes. “He showed Randall his tennis shoes and they both laughed, realizing they both still tie their shoes the exact same strange way, forty years later.
“No one shared extravagant stories about accomplishments, success, material possessions, or money. Their stories were all about their time spent with Randall and how much fun they had just hanging out together in the comfortable moments of everyday life.”
2: When Diane first started her work as an end-of-life doula, she assumed that people who were dying would focus on the “extraordinary” moments in life, the weddings, promotions, and exotic vacations.
Not so.
“I was surprised to find that, time and again,” she writes, “what people recount most with affection and gratitude are those simple pleasures of an ordinary day.”
Her takeaway: “The dying experience life differently, and we can, too. Start by paying attention to just one full day in our life.”
We can ask ourselves: What are the things we do every day that bring us joy and make us feel good?
Diane writes: “One wealthy client, Bernice, who traveled the world and lived quite an extravagant life, shared what she was going to miss the most.”
“When I die, I’m going to miss…just this. Sitting here on my porch, savoring my morning bowl of steel-cut oatmeal, and listening to the birds. This is a beautiful moment. Aside from the time I spend with my kids, I don’t need or want anything else.”
Bernice told Diane that for her life at its best was made up of simple pleasures: “Quiet time, a healthy lifestyle, plenty of sleep, a spiritual practice, everyday kindness, time shared with others, and fewer material possessions.”
3: Another of Diane’s clients, Jessica, had been living with dementia for eight years.
Each day, she sat quietly in her recliner, looking out the window, pointing at cars driving by, and smiling when one of her cats ran across the yard.
One day, when Diane arrived, she found Jessica’s husband, Ben, sitting beside her, holding her hand and looking at it quietly.
Ben looked up and said, “I used to always chase the big moments in life. I was never satisfied with what I had, always wanting more…more money, more possessions, more success. There was always something more important right around the corner. I never really stopped to enjoy my days. But now, this is my favorite pastime…”
He paused and then cradled Jessica’s hand in his. “He lovingly ran his thumb down her fingers,” Diane writes, “stopping over her wedding ring, and continued speaking very slowly.”
Ben said, “I love to hold her hands. They are filled with a lifetime of our sweet memories. These hands have held our children, hugged strangers, cooked thousands of meals, played violin, built furniture, taught classes, and planted seeds that grew into beautiful flowers…and I’m sure if she could talk, she would remind me how many loads of laundry these hands have folded.”
He chuckled a bit at his last comment and looked back up at me.
“It sounds like those hands have lived quite a full and beautiful life, Ben,” Diane said.
“They have…yes, these hands have lived. And not only that but now I have memorized every wrinkle and curve and the way her nails are so small and dainty, even though her hands are scarred and a little rough looking from a lifetime of caring for me and the kids. I realized that, even after sixty-two years together, I hadn’t taken the time to really look at her beautiful hands.”
Diane writes: “It’s the simple things that matter in life. The small things. The things we may not even notice when we are living life in the fast lane…like our hands and feet, or our unique fingerprints, or the infectious sound of our uncontrollable laughter.”
More next week.
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Reflection: Am I racing past the small, shared moments of everyday life—the stories, routines, jokes, touches, and quiet pleasures—that I will one day miss the most?
Action: Choose one ordinary moment in my day (a meal, a walk, a greeting, a bedtime routine) and give it my full attention—lingering a little longer, listening more closely, or expressing more appreciation—so I begin to live the way I want to remember my life.
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