"Final Gifts." Remembering Our Loved Ones in a Good Way

As we remember the passing of dear President Carter at the age of 100, a remarkable and generous and kind honest man, I’d like to share my experiences about the book, “Final Gifts” which came across my wandering the internet this evening. Years ago after my sister passed away, a colleague shared this book with me. I bought the book and kept it with me as a tool for helping myself and others. I have also gifted it to others. The guidance became my companion through my mother’s passing as well as my father’s. I recommend it to help in understanding the veil between the preparation a soul experiences as they ready themselves for crossing over, and as those in the next world prepare to receive them. Each person experiences death and dying in different ways based on their life and their beliefs and their experiences. I realize this and only share here from my own experience with no expectations of others.

Sometimes there is no time or opportunity for preparation to be made with a loved one before they pass, as happened in my life with both of my younger sisters. Sometimes there are maybe hours, days, weeks and even months of holding a loved one in your heart and sitting with them as they go through the experience of dying and leaving this world for the next. Many of us experienced loosing loved ones from outside a room or window due to covid during the tragic pandemic. I had the blessing of being with both my mother and my father. This lovely little book, along with my special prayers that I carried with me, brought me a deeper appreciation and understanding of what I was witnessing in my parents, in myself, and in other family members as we walked through their final days together. These experiences are always close to my heart at this time of year, as my father passed in the month of November, 2018, at the age of 93 and my mother on Christmas Day, 2015, she was 84. My sister Diana passed away in November of 1995, she was only 45. My sister Barbie passed away at 46, in January of 2000. I’m the oldest, my mother gave birth to four children in five years. When I was 14, in 1963, a baby brother was born.

My experiences of loosing good friends, spiritual sisters and brothers, and clients over the last many years to covid and illnesses, alcohol and drug addiction, has also been heavy on my heart. Processing the passing of dear loved ones is never over and happens in stages as you know. This time of year always offers new experiences for me, moving in stages that are some times just too many and too overwhelming to even grasp.

As I experienced saying good bye to each of my parents separately and under different conditions, my ability to be with them and hold them close was possible because of what I had gratefully learned from previous years of training and education, preparing myself through studying this book and others like it on death and dying. Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, for example, a Swiss-American psychiatrist, and pioneer in near-death studies. I studied her work as a mental health counselor to help assist clients and their families with grief and loss. Other useful research materials and authors as well, that are not necessary to name here and now. It’s this little book however, "Final Gifts", with stories presented by hospice nurses, that touched my heart so deeply and in a personal capacity to help me understand how to learn, over time, to let go and say good bye.

The book review here is thoughtful and I hope you find it helpful in a good way.

https://maggiecallanan.com/interview_bedard.pdf