A recent Bizarro cartoon shows a Grim Reaper in a tie-dyed outfit and wearing sunglasses. This is one cool dude.
A frightened-looking hippie type is looking at him aghast. The Chill Reaper says, “Dude! Why so grim? Chillax.”
Why not chill out? The fear of the unknown makes people nervous. What is outside our current physical existence?
If Easter weekend tells us anything, the dead rise again. We just don’t know where or how. Chill!
I’m always monitoring news about end-of-life issues. Ironically, in Texas and Vermont, two states where I’m speaking soon, there are currently legislative actions on right-to-die questions.
This recent story in the Austin American Statesman, “Legislators Struggle Again with End-of-Life Decisions,” details an emotionally and politically delicate issue — how to resolve end-of-life disputes when doctors seek to let a patient die against the family’s wishes. A process put in place in 1999 needs reforms, and crafting a plan that is acceptable to all parties is proving impossible.
Some of the issues, as detailed in the article:
In Texas, if doctors believe continued treatment would inhumanely extend suffering in a way that violates their oath to do no harm, they can overrule family wishes by asking the hospital’s ethics committee for approval to halt life-sustaining care — which can include withholding dialysis, ventilators, food and water.
If the committee — often comprising uninvolved doctors, social workers and clergy — agrees, treatment can be halted in 10 days, theoretically giving the family time to accept the inevitability of death or, if they still disagree, to locate a caregiver willing to accept the patient.
The process is intended to shield doctors and hospitals from wrongful death lawsuits while protecting the rights of patients and their families. But in practice, according to testimony at legislative hearings, families can be left scrambling in an unfamiliar system, with an impractical deadline, to find other sources of care.
I’m speaking this Thursday to the North Texas Region of the Texas Funeral Directors Association.
Meanwhile, up north in Vermont, this recent USA Today article “Support Grows in Vermont for an End-of-Life Bill” looks at how terminally ill patients with a prognosis of less than six months to live want to have the right to request and take life-ending medication.
The bill “Patient Choice and Control at End of Life” passed the Vermont Senate in February and goes to the House in March. Although assisted dying is illegal in most states and opponents have been fighting proposals for the past 15 years, support is growing in Vermont and other parts of the Northeast. Connecticut and New Jersey legislators are also examining measures.
Vermont would be the first state to pass a doctor-assisted-death bill through the legislative process. Oregon and Washington voters passed similar bills in voter referendums. Massachusetts voters defeated a measure, 51% to 49%, in November.
Compassion and Choices, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting the rights of the terminally ill, has been actively involved in promoting the Vermont legislation. The organization provides end-of-life counseling, advance planning, and legal casework on end-of-life issues.
Full Disclosure: The New Mexico chapter of Compassion and Choices is a sponsor of my upcoming TV series, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die. I admire what they do to help start end-of-life conversations.
I’ll be speaking to the Vermont Funeral Consumers Alliance’s annual meeting on Saturday, May 4, 2013.
This recent Pearls Before Swine death cartoon eloquently illustrates how individuals all need different amounts of time to mourn – and they grieve in different ways.
The Guard Duck and Pig are putting together a basketball team. Guard Duck says, “Hey, Mr. Armadillo. Care to join our basketball team?” Mr. Armadillo replies, “I’d like to, but my wife just got run over by a truck and I’m afraid I need some time to mourn.”
There is one panel’s worth of silence.
“Okay, I’m good,” says Mr. Armadillo. “He is SO resilient,” marvels Pig.
Okay, so armadillos have a habit of getting run over on the road on a regular basis. Humans, whether they admit it or not, need a bit more time than a moment to process the loss of a loved one.
Don’t be a human armadillo. Take time to recognize that life is changed by loss.
According to Albert Jack, author of Phantom Hitchhikers and Other Urban Legends: The Strange Stories Behind Tall Tales, Disney is not cryopreserved at Disneyland. Says Jack:
“It’s rumored that Walt Disney had himself frozen while awaiting a cure for lung cancer. In fact, he died without knowing his illness was terminal, so no such arrangements would have been made. Disney’s cremated remains rest in peace in Glendale, California.”
Disney died on December 15, 1966. His ashes are interred in a modest spot at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
Ironically, a funeral director told me one of the top places for illicit cremated remains scattering is Disneyland and Disney World… specifically the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Disney employees have to replace the filters for the water system frequently because they get clogged with people’s ashes.
Yesterday, I was speaking in the Division level competition of Toastmasters International Speech Contest. My speech, “Let Your Light Shine,” which tells the story of how and why I became The Doyenne of Death, won second place. Congratulations to Eric Tonningsen, who won first place with his riveting speech, “My Radiant Heart.”
Here’s how this version of “Let Your Light Shine” looked in the competition.
If Eric doesn’t make it to the District level competition at the Toastmasters District 23 spring conference in Lubbock, TX, I could still move up the ladder to the International competition. Live long and prosper!
We plan our finances, our families, our retirement, just about everything
except our funerals. Without end-of-life planning, life’s other plans can come
undone.
Just as talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals
won’t make you dead – and your family will benefit from the conversation.
Gail Rubin, author of the award-winning book A Good Goodbye: Funeral
Planning for Those Who Don't Plan to Die, uses gentle humor to convey the
vital information about funeral arrangements that most people don’t learn
about until faced with a death in the family.
Ms. Rubin will speak about funeral planning issues, illustrating her points with clips from comedy films and television programs. Films include Death at a Funeral, Undertaking Betty, The Big Lebowski, The Six Wives of Henry LeFay, and the “Chuckles Bites The Dust” episode from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Come on out to laugh and learn!
Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®, also hosts a TV interview series and
weekly Internet radio program called A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for
Those Who Don’t Plan to Die. A Certified Celebrant and funeral planning
consultant, she is a member of the Association for Death Education and
Counseling and the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral
Association.
What: Film clip talk by Gail Rubin, author and host of A Good Goodbye:
Funeral Planning for Those Who Don't Plan to Die
When: Saturday, May 4th, 1:00 PM as Keynote Address
Where: Norwich Congregational Church, Norwich, Vermont
Contact: Mary Alice Bisbee, FCA-VT Info Hotline: (802)223-8140
Or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
