I have two fantasies of the way my life’s end might go:

 

Fantasy #1:  In my mid- to late-80s, after living healthily and independently for my entire life, Richard and I go to sleep, share the most extraordinary dream of our lives, and never wake up.

 

That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

 

But say I come down with a bad case of cancer or dementia when I’m elderly, or some other painful, debilitating terminal (eventually) illness. Say I don’t have much money left to make my end of days more comfortable. Say I have an absolute horror of going into a hospital or nursing home. Say there’s no place else to go for someone in my position. In place of that, this is what I wish could happen:

 

Fantasy #2:  A new type of caregiver would be in place, that of the caregiver who lovingly helps a dying person slip away peacefully. You sign up voluntarily for this service, and when you’re ready, you call them. But before that, you throw a party. A big party. Maybe a week-long party where your remaining loved ones who want to can all come and stop by to say goodbye. They take care of all of the details.  You get to eat all of your favorite foods and drink all of your favorite drinks (all the bubbly you want, say). You get your affairs in order with the help of loved ones and trusted professionals. You get to tell everyone who comes to see you how much you love them and how much they mean to you, how glad you are that they graced your life and how much you appreciate everything they gave you and taught you. If there’s someone who needs your forgiveness and you haven’t forgiven them until now, you forgive them. If they’re not there, you send them a letter. If you can’t write it, a friend or family member will take your dictation and make sure the letter gets mailed. If you have any pets, you make arrangements for their loving care.

 

When you’re ready, you call the … what should I call them? … the deliverers? The travel agents? Angels of death? Like the wonderful people who work for hospice, these compassionate individuals will have been screened for their positive outlook on the process that we call death, for their innate kindness, for their calm, reassuring presence. They’ll have whatever medical training they need; they will have been trained specifically to help someone move on.

 

Someone lovingly bathes you and dresses you in clean, comfy clothes, maybe your favorites once again. They comb out your hair—that is, if you have any left by then. Whoever you’ve chosen to hold your hand and keep you company while you leave is in the room with you and the angel. Your favorite music is playing, or maybe it’s quiet and the windows are open and you’re listening to crickets or bird song. Hopefully, you’ll be looking out the window at a lovely view. In your room itself, you’ll be surrounded by beauty and comfort and love. If you like flowers, there will be flowers, scads and scads of them cheering you on, reminding you of life’s cycle, of flowering, reaching your peak, and then fading, as all living things do. If you’d like a ritual or ceremony, one is performed, with love, honoring you, honoring your life and individuality and being.

And then a drug is mercifully dispensed, so that you don’t suffer, you simply slip away, beloved and blessed, in good spiritual and emotional shape for your next adventure. Everyone who loves you will miss you. They will miss you forever. But they’ll know that you’re not suffering, and that they gave you the gift of a good death. A good death. Isn’t that what we should hope for? Immortality is not a physical possibility. And not even desirable, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s make room for new life! Fighting for life, after a certain point, only makes death painful and traumatic for everyone concerned, when it doesn’t have to be that way.

 

And in the meantime, I want to live every day as if it might be my last, so that when that last day finally comes, whenever it comes, I can greet it with peace, contentment, and the knowledge that my life was well-lived. And in the same way that a perfect ending makes us feel that a good book we’ve read and loved all the way along becomes one of the best books we’ve ever read, a lovely ending burnishes the beauty of a life all the more.