Examples of Embracing Mortality

One of the main components of sage-ing is embracing one's mortality.  There are many ways to do this and the focus is always on becoming more comfortable with our own death and with the death of others.

A story with which many of us are familiar is the last lecture by former Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch.  He delivered a lecture as part of their last lecture series that literally was a "last lecture."  This lecture was made into a popular selling book. 

I was moved recently by another example of embracing mortality.  A few weeks ago I was at one of my annual conferences and noticed the absence of a prominent member of the organization.  Before I had a chance to ask about "her," the leadership announced that in the spring she discovered she had pancreatic cancer.  This was very sad news as they said it was in the late stages and she had little time left.

What "she" decided to do was start a blog on CaringBridge.org.  On the blog, she demonstrated so many sage-ing aspects.  In fact, she is a sage.  She showed creativity by sharing her favorite family recipes.  This was one way she was continuing to leave her legacy.  She also shared how she was feeling about life and about death.  There were photos on the site and reading the journal made me feel as if I were right there with her on the journey.

She was a gentle, generous, and kind person in life and she was demonstrating these same characteristics while dying.  Her husband posted her final message last Friday and asked us to wait for more news.  It was moving, but she embraced the fact that there was nothing more she could do about her condition other than to accept it and choose her closing thoughts and words.