Before We Say Goodbye: Preparing for a Good Death. Ray Simpson
Читать онлайн книгу.
Cuthbert (D. 687) and Ramon (D. 2000)
by Jean Peart
I am so grateful to God for leading me to this book, and so grateful to Ray for writing it. It was such a help and comfort to me when my dear mother was dying. The prayers in this book gave reassurance, comfort and confidence as I stayed with my mother during her last weeks to continually pray over her and, I believe, to ease her passage to heaven.
My mother’s passing was so peaceful and gentle (just like a candle going out). She indeed had death without pain, death without fear, death without death. A quote that has spoken to me over the last year is this: ‘One should spend one’s life contemplating one’s deathbed.’ Even the staff at the nursing home were amazed at the wonderful passing my mother had. The peace at the time of her passing and afterwards in the nursing home was like a blanket of peace that descended over the whole place for several hours.
This book is both deeply spiritual and very practical – a wonderful aid for those who care. I kept it in my handbag for a month, and sat with it in my hand through the last days with my mother.
May God bless and keep all who use this book.
Jean Peart
The Open Gate
The Holy Island of Lindisfarne
Life is a journey from the womb to the tomb.
There are things to learn that make the journey, even at its end, worthwhile.
To live well requires us to die well.
If we are to die well, we need to prepare for it.
We are all dying. Some of us die sooner than others.
The best time to start to prepare for death is when we are young.
Please don’t die without having lived.
Please don’t depart without having said truly satisfying goodbyes.
The airliner went into a nose dive. A maniac had attacked the pilot and broken the autopilot. Every passenger was convinced they were plunging to certain death. Lady Anabel Goldsmith was on that plane. In seats behind her were her son Zak, her daughter Jemima Khan, and her grandchildren. A myriad things she would have liked to have said and done before they parted this life flashed through her mind, but it seemed too late now. She had time to utter only one word to them: ‘Goodbye.’ By some miracle the plane, only seconds from disaster, was saved. Lady Anabel was given a second chance to get things right before she said goodbye.
This book offers us a chance to get things right before we say goodbye. It may be our only chance. Although we can run away from almost anything in life, we cannot run away from death. So much has been written about how to cope with other people’s deaths. So little has been written about preparing for our own death. Those books that have been written are not the sort you would hold in your hand, or keep in your heart, when you are too weak to take in new information. This simple, practical guide comes from one heart to another. It calls us to live and to die well, to be good stewards of our short time on earth.
There are as many ways of dying as there are people. This little book will help you to plan your final journey, your farewells, your funeral and your will in a way that will uniquely bless you and those around you. Some are too fearful or thoughtless to do this. This book will help you to do it gently, in small doses.
Dying itself is a journey. We cannot halt it, but we may influence the spirit in which we make it. We can learn from enlightened people who have made glorious exits. We can learn from practitioners who have studied the cycles of dying. We can learn from the caring insights of the hospice movement. And now that hospital and funeral services are business oriented, we can be part of a citizens’ movement to take back responsibility for our own and our loved ones’ departures.
THE THINGS THEY SAY ABOUT DYING
To die well is the chief part of virtue.
GREEK PROVERB
A good death does honour to a whole life.
ITALIAN PROVERB
It is a great art to die well, and to be learned by those in health.
JEREMY TAYLOR, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, 1651
Death can cause a human being to become what he or she was called to become; it can be, in the fullest sense of the word, an accomplishment.
FRANCOIS MITTERAND
Death, so far from being cruel, is an act of love rounding off our brief testing here.
ELIZABETH MYERS
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Lord, grant that my last hour may be my best hour.
OLD ENGLISH PRAYER
If