Life's Last Gift by Charles Garfield

Author:Charles Garfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942094517
Publisher: Central Recovery Press, LLC
Published: 2017-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

We don’t always know how our gift will be received given the powerful circumstances in play for our loved one, but my experience has been that, in by far the majority of instances, small acts have been greatly appreciated.

You may feel that you have little to offer, but the act of giving is vital, especially during the dying time. So, I’d ask you to consider: What small act of kindness might you offer your loved one? Don’t be afraid to remember, or laugh, or say, “I love you.”

Gifts Only You Can Give

In the long months when my best friend Rico was dying of multiple myeloma, we had the chance to revisit some of our favorite memories and places. Mostly, we’d take walks, when he was up to it. We’d walk and sit, walk and remember, walk and talk about women, or politics, or sports, or dying. We talked about our lives, mostly.

At one point, when he had rebounded a bit, I suggested that we do one last, easy workout to celebrate and honor our three decades of friendship and being workout partners at the gym. He loved the idea. We did all our old exercises and reminisced about the times we’d had at the gym. He talked about “our last workout” several times during his final weeks, once remarking, with obvious joy and fulfillment, that “we were strong, young men.”

For my mother, I put together three small albums filled with family photos from before I was born, and even from before she was born, until the current day. We’d page through them together, and she looked at them frequently when I wasn’t there. The images triggered numerous conversations about our lives and the people in them, and the hours we shared recalling specific events and comparing our memories were some of our most treasured times together.

You may not have a deep or layered history with the person in the bed, but it doesn’t matter. If you were the friend who used to go to your loved one’s house for cooking lessons or meals, you might now ask your friend to divulge some recipes or techniques you can record and pass on, or watch chef competitions on TV. If you have been professional colleagues, you might want to talk shop. There are gifts only you can give: stories, shared passions, your particular sense of humor or outrage or fun. Reminders of these things—who you are and what each of you brought and still brings to the relationship—are precious. Share those.

Your compassionate presence means everything. I can’t say it often enough: the most important act of kindness is for you to simply be there with an open heart.

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