Last year at this time, I watched my dear friend, Carol Trasatto, attempt to fight cancer and lose. For the two months that I was in the trenches with her, I learned much about death and dying. About life and living. Shortly after she died I wrote a note to myself of these lessons and a list of practices. 1. The dried rose, the ticket stub, the ballet toe shoes you wore in third grade, and the Doors poster that hung on the back of your teenage bedroom door are precious to you and to no one else. Practice: Release attachment to the past. These are “things” that are holding a vibration of something long gone. While pleasant memories are lovely to revisit, the stuff is holding us back. Take a couple of days to go through your collection of memorabilia and see if it brings you alive— and then ask why — and let it go anyway. 2. There wasn’t anything about Carol (or my mother, father, sister, brother) that I found out about them after they died that I wouldn’t have rather found out about them before they died. The secret lovers, the hidden treasures, the past connections to people, the magical journeys, the accomplishments — share it now. Practice: Think about the parts of your life that you have kept hidden from your close loved ones. Is there some significant story in your past that you have not shared? Something you are saving for them for after they die? Don’t. Share it now. Create a celebration of life with your friends, family, mate and dance around the fire or the Zoom chat and share. Share what you think they will find out about you after you are gone. What will your stuff tell them? What significant thing have you been hiding? 3. Tinctures don’t last forever. a. Practice: There are expiration dates on things for a reason. Go through your medicine cabinets, pantries and closets for things that have expired. If you have canned goods, close to expiration, give them to the food bank. Carol, an herbalist, had gallons and gallons of tinctures I’m sure she meant to share. Alas, we dumped and dumped for days. 4. You will never wear that 1980’s denim jacket, again, or your wedding veil or the embroidered silk jacket. Practice: Go through your clothes and let go of things you have kept for nostalgic purposes. Better yet, have a fashion show — on line — of crazy outfits you have kept that you are ready to give to someone who will use it. 5. Make a will. Without a will, your estate will probably go into probate. This means different things in different states. In Washington State, it means $5,000 to a lawyer no matter how simple and straight forward your affairs are. Even if there is only one clear person to inherit your stuff, and even if you write it on a napkin, it will still go into probate and cost thousands and take months. If you have under $100,000 in assets, there is a work around process where you do not need to go to probate, but there is a learning curve. It is complicated, there are forms and you will probably need to hire a lawyer anyway. Absolute simplest solution is to MAKE A WILL. Practice: there are sites on line to make a will (willing.com). Print it out. Fill it out. Get two witnesses. Take it to a notary. In Olympia, there is one at Ralph’s. 6. Make sure the beneficiaries on IRA’s, bank accounts, and life insurance policies are up to date. Believe it or not, one of Carol’s IRA’s went to her ex-husband who she divorced over thirty years before she died (It is possible it was intentional). The most difficult part was that her brother had to track him down. Practice: Double-check your policies. Who are the beneficiaries? Consider if that is who you really want to receive your assets. No one else needs to know. This is a private matter. And if you feel like “you should” give it to so-and-so, consider this is your chance to be in your highest integrity. 7. You don’t need a bank deposit box for your car title. It is a lot of work closing out an estate, even one without a home. I have deep appreciation for my brother who took care of my parent’s estates. Forever, thank you Steve! Practice: Simplify where you keep stuff. Keep important papers in two or three locations to be safe. But five, six or seven different hide-aways are unnecessary. 8. You don’t need to hide your cash stash so that Sherlock Holmes can’t find it. Most of us have a cash stash, especially those of us who prepped for Y2K. Carol and I were living together at the time and we learned a lot about how to be prepared for different kinds of emergencies. Having cash on hand can be helpful (although who knows where we are headed with cash). I knew Carol had a cash stash, so of course, I looked for it. It took weeks of at least ten people clearing out her tiny home to find her cash stash. I think she would be proud. I, on the other hand, not so much. She hid it inside a can, which was inside a shoe box with old stuff, which was inside a tub with old sheets. Easily missed. Easily thrown away. If you want to hide precious valuables and money, at least leave a clue. Practice: Where do you keep your cash stash? Your valuables? A portable locked safe can be a good idea. Hidden — but tell your trusted friends where it is. 9. Passwords! Passwords! Passwords! These days our lives are run by passwords. Many of us have figured out cute ways to have multiple passwords. We have systems. We have computers that remember our passwords, but that doesn’t always work. There are security questions. Thank goodness Steve remembered Carol’s first car (Camaro). Practice: Somewhere, write down your passwords and keep it up to date. Almost nothing will be more important after you have passed on. We will be remembered by the secret codes that open our secret bank accounts, energy accounts and portals to subscriptions. Know that everything needs to be cancelled when we die. The New York Times subscription, your scientific herbal journals and your dental plan. 10. Make a living will with a durable power of attorney — both for health and for finances. These are two separate things. This doesn’t matter after you are dead, but it is HUGELY helpful during the dying process. As we were going into the ER with Carol, we were making sure this was done for health, but we didn’t do one for finances. So much easier it if is done while not driving to the ER. If she had not done this, her brother who was taking care of her ailing parents would have had to come out. This simple piece of paper made it so much easier for her friends and myself in the hospital making decisions during the weeks when Carol could not. If she had done one for finances, it would have made a few things easier for us in taking care of her. As it was, we made do with the moments when she was somewhat aware. Practice: Go online and get the forms. They need to be notarized, so this takes planning and a trip to a notary. endoflifewa.com has some of the forms and a lot of information about death with dignity. 11. You don’t need to keep any records past seven years and most things can get thrown out after three years. Practice: Go to Irs.gov and find out how long you need to keep your taxes and receipts. And recycle, burn or shred the old ones. Don’t leave this for others to do. Papers are a pain in the butt to deal with. Little notes, odd receipts, and papers to go through can take so much time. Separate out important stock documents from storage unit receipts of twenty years ago. (I won’t go into too much detail here, but yes, this happened.) 12. Our healthcare system is in disrepair. We have to advocate for ourselves or have someone advocate for us. This was a shock to me as an able-bodied, privileged, white girl. I know we are all learning this right now. Last year (2019), we had to wait over a day for a bed to open up on the cancer floor. She was already dying. Her cancer doctor, who we met for the first time (Kaiser), told us to go straight to the Emergency Room after spending hours trying to find a bed for her anywhere within an hour driving distance of Olympia. Even Seattle had no open beds. It was flu season. That was last year. Practice: Learn to advocate for yourself and your loved ones. Practice asking for what you need. Clear emotional blockages to asking for help. Practice by asking for help in simple situations — when you need directions or want to find something in the grocery store. Most of us want to help. 13. Know “your person” and know if you are another person’s “person”. Marriage usually makes this a clearer thing, however, I wouldn’t assume. Have a conversation with those you are closest to about your wishes for dying. These can change, but mostly, identify those in your life who will step into the dying support role and those in your life for whom you will be called into the dying support role. Carol and I had a long and complicated history. We were lovers and broke up, lived together and then moved out. We had a business together for 17 years and throughout were closest of friends. Over the last couple of years of her life, we were still dear friends, but not as close. When we stopped doing our newsletter together, I needed a real break. I pulled away from the work and from her. She told me about people in her life she thought would be there for her. I was a bit taken off guard when I realized that all of her other close friends were either dealing with big emergencies or didn’t feel as close to her as she thought they were. That’s the moment when I realized I was her person. Sadly (in hindsight), I was resistant at first. It took me a few days to process that all of her friends and family were turning to me for decisions and updates. There were several powerful things I learned from this experience. First, it is always a gift to be someone’s person. It doesn’t matter who they are or when you find out. To be someone’s most trusted person is a gift. It may entail a lot of work, putting off your own life or making changes you would rather not make, but there is nothing more precious. This is something that lasts beyond the grave. It is always a gift. Second, if this takes you unaware, step into it fully. There are elders who have no one — you may be a distant niece or cousin. And there you are — finding yourself in the role of “their person”. Say, yes. Quickly and without hesitation. Practice: Make an inventory of the most important people in your life. Reach out and ask the hard questions. Find out if you are their person. Recognize your person and share that with them. 14. Death isn’t scary. Watching a person die is a profound experience. Some of you have watched many people die. The breath stops. Stillness. Then the room drops in temperature as the soul transitions out of the body. Not scary, at least not to me. 15. Our souls stay connected to our bodies after death. Body bags, cremations, burials and morgues matter. This surprised me. Carol walked up to the gates a few times in life — twice in the month before she died. While she was in the hospital, the chemo drugs rendered her speechless, yet trying to communicate. I knew her well enough to make connections and could sense what she was saying. I might not have gotten everything right, but there was confirmation that I got a lot right. Nods of her head. Peaceful expressions. Stuff found. As she was dying I was surprised to be able to hear her so clearly — like she was whispering in my ear. Many of you know that as part of my work, I can often sense and connect with other souls — so this isn’t a scary thing for me. It’s quite normal in my world. I’m not psychic. I just trust my inner senses and have been gifted with practice with clients for over twenty years. After she died in the ICU at Saint Pete’s, once they unplugged the respirator that was keeping her in a pseudo-state of life, the staff gave us four hours to be with her body. (I doubt they are still doing that during this pandemic). We washed her body in oils and a beautiful group of women cared for her body. Some of us made calls to family and friends who couldn’t be there. I kept listening. Listening to what was next. When it was time to take her to the morgue, a kind and sweet woman arrived with a white body bag and asked if we wanted to be there while they put her body in it. At first I didn’t think anything of leaving, but then I could hear Carol — and felt fear in her soul about this. This surprised me. So I stayed and zipped up the bag for her. Whether this was for me or for her, in the end, my attention to the smallest of considerations in her passing has left me with a feeling of grace. This was one of those moments that I am glad I stayed for. When I think of my out-of-the-body experiences in life, experiences that I believe are the closest thing I know to dying, I can imagine the disorientation that a soul might experience with a sudden death or just an unexpected death. Carol did not think she was dying. Between being diagnosed very late in her experience with cancer and the discontinuity of doctors in her life, there wasn’t one doctor she could turn to for understanding her chances. In light of this, she was not supported in the realization of her dying process. She had the spirit of a warrior and wanted to fight and she died fighting. It was ironic that she wasn’t prepared for death, since she had done Buddhist workshops on dying, had mounds of books on dying and had even led a class on it. Her legacy in the form of her book Conscious Caregiving is dedicated to supporting those in dying situations. But life is ironic, right? I had a strong feeling, especially after feeling her connection to her body still in tact after death, to hold off on cremation for at least three days. The funeral home, Funeral Alternatives of Washington, was accommodating (even if they did question this decision). As we were about to put her body into the oven, I again felt an overwhelming sense of fear coming from Carol. There were five of us there and we started to sing. Singing is such a calming vibration for a soul. I could immediately sense a relaxation from her. Intuitively, I feel like she still wasn’t ready for that step, but then Carol was never much of one for change. Part of her Taurus Moon-Ascendant nature. 16. Buddhism knows a thing or two about death. This may be obvious to many of you, but I am a Catholic, Hindu, New-Age, Swami Kripalvinanda student. Buddhism, other than the 10-day sit at Vipassana I did in 1986, is out of my wheelhouse. A few days after Carol died, I clearly heard her ask me to do a Buddhist death meditation practice for her. I knew a friend who had done this for her friend, so I asked this friend for the practice. She respectfully shared it with me. It was long and complicated and I had immediate resistance. But a day or two later, I felt Carol so clearly ask me again to do it, that she had no one else to do it for her. Thus, I began. It took over two hours the first day, looking back and forth at my handwritten notes — notes with prayers and rituals and mantras and movements, gods and goddesses that I never heard of, sounds I never made before. There were things to burn and bells to ring. It is a forty-day practice called Phowa. I don’t think I can begin to share how profound this practice was — even for me who was less than a novice. Synchronicities connected to the intentions and prayers happened every single day. One day, I found an old journal of hers — it was a journal she kept during a Buddhist retreat studying . . . Phowa. There I had all her meticulous and thorough notes on the practice. Since her notes were taken during a sacred initiation, I do not feel free to share them here, especially since I am not a practicing Buddhist. But I can share that the practice can be done by a well-intentioned layperson, preferably one who already has a meditation practice. Here is an introduction to the practice by Joan Halifax: https://www.upaya.org/dox/phowa.pdf Most (all?) religions have beliefs about dying — where we go, how we go, if we go. As we enter a dying time — during this pandemic — whether we have sense of the end of our own life or someone close to us — or simply have a sense of the collective “waiting for the death wave”, the introduction meditations to Phowa may be deeply supportive to us and to others around us. Sometimes sensing a death wave coming can lead to anxiety. Almost all my clients have asked recently if they or loved ones were going to die. While we may still have a greater chance of dying in a car accident than of Covid-19, the feeling of death is in the air — Jupiter (openings)-Pluto (into the underworld) — and might be all year as Jupiter goes back and forth over Pluto. Doing the practices that are preparation practices for dying or for the dead can help alleviate anxiety. Like going into the eye of the storm or using a homeopathic, facing what is to come (for all of us at some point in time) can ease the fear. 17. Community matters. One of the beautiful things about Carol and her passing was that she gathered community around her. She may have spent much time alone, but she was generous with her gifts and worked to create harmony in this world through community. As we witnessed her passing, she was almost never alone and none of us needed to be alone in the journey with her. This was a beautiful part of her passing and is a passing gift. The circle of friends who were part of being there while she was realizing she was working with cancer again, to providing spaces for her to live during the snow storm, to being there with her in the hospital — overnights and all, to being there in the process of her dying, to being there in the process of her after-death, to being there in the process of clearing the stuff of her life, to being there for creating a heartfelt community celebration — -we did this together. All of the decisions were not left up to one “mate” and the sharing and the gathering and the creativity that this inspired left a lasting mark and enriched all of our lives. So, these are some of the things I learned from Carol’s death. I was surprised by the chaotic state of our health care system and how deeply we can stay connected to our bodies after death. How complicated our legal system is around death and how much work it is to clean out another person’s stuff wasn’t surprising as much as it was enlightening. And even as I write this, I have to admit that I have only done a few things on the list. During this time of quarantine, join me as I take a week to take care of each item. This is a way of tending to our lives that shows consideration for those whom we will leave behind — hopefully not for a very long time. By tending to our dying state of affairs and remembering that we can’t take it with us, we tend to the people we most care about — our “persons” who will step into the roll of completing our worldly karma. May you find yourself steeped in community, enveloped in joy and fulfilled in a legacy of love.
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