“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die” – Thomas Campbell.

 

I have a friend on Cape Cod, an artist named Susan Baker; she called her art gallery The Susan Baker Memorial Art Gallery. I asked her why she did this strange thing, and she said it was simple: “Nobody will build a memorial to me when I die, so I thought I might have one while I live.”

This made good sense to me.

My hospice volunteer work completely changed my perspective on dying, as it must. I learned that death is often sad, but it can also be wonderful: an honest look back at life, a healing of wounds, an acceptance of life, gratitude for living, and a final demonstration of great love.

So I’ve decided to name my bedroom garden complex  The Jon Katz Memorial Garden.

Since I don’t want a memorial, I like the contrarian idea of naming the garden a memorial garden in my honor.

Maria would get a good laugh out of that every time she looked at it. I have asked instead for my ashes to be collected and spread in several places where we spent time together.

That would make my spirit very happy, wherever it was.

The Memorial Garden idea will encourage me to think about how I want to die rather than stumble blindly into it. One of many things I’ve learned working at the Mansion and in hospice is that it’s too late to do anything about dying when most people get around to the end. (My garden, by the way, is exploding.)

To me, this does not have to be depressing.

Nothing in life is gone forever; the sadness we feel when we lose someone we love is the toll we pay to have had them in our lives. It seems fair and just and brings me comfort when I look at it that way.

I can hardly imagine the grief I would feel if Maria died before me, but I hope I will never forget to be grateful for our love and the joy and support we brought to one another. Most people on this earth don’t get to have that experience; life is too hard.

My dogs have taught me this in a way; their deaths were my first brush with mortality, the first thinking about dying that I did. The price for their life and companionship is grief. In my mind, I honor them by being grateful, not too sad for too long.

Dogs are not people, but I have loved some of them as much or more as I have loved many people.

When they die, I have learned to give thanks for the love they brought me rather than mourn their loss.  I remember Rose and Red and the others often, so they are not dead to me. I chose to love dogs, not regret them. Their love and loyalty to me have always lifted me up. The last thing they would want is for me to stay down.

There are lessons in my life with dogs about death even before hospice. I don’t need a memorial stone or grave for Red, Rose, or Zinnia.

One thing I realized is that I wish to be cremated. It would be unfortunate if people marked my passing with a memorial; that is not something I want or need.

If people remember me, I hope it’s for a flower they see, a cloud, an idea or a thought, a small act of great kindness, something I wrote or a photo I took, or an opinion I triggered.

I would love it if 1,000 Army’s of Good sprung up in towns, counties, and individual lives. That would be a lot more meaningful than a memorial.

I meant this memorial garden thing as a joke, but the more I think of it, the more I like it. As a young Quaker, I learned to celebrate life, not mourn it. That was and is the very opposite of the way I was taught to grieve in the Jewish tradition of mourning and loss.

This idea is not, to me,  morbid at all. It’s a kind of celebration of life itself.

Every time anyone sees one of my flowers in those garden beds or plants their own, it means I am still alive and in a beautiful way.

What would a memorial accomplish? I don’t want to rot away in a wooden box deep in the ground. What good would that do anyone?

As always, I need to say that I don’t believe in telling others what to feel or do or how to grieve. Grieving is an intensely personal and profound experience, I respect anyone’s choices about how to do it.

I’m not an advocate for my way. It’s just my way.

As long as Maria, my daughter, granddaughter, or reader of my blog or books, thinks of me, reads what I have written, comes across a photograph I took, or smiles at a memory of me, I will be alive.

I have lost several friends and family who were close to me, and I understand the power and need for grieving. But I have also come to practice the idea of radical acceptance.

I can hope to die in a certain way, but until I experience it, I can’t know how I will feel. I can only know how I want it to feel. I’ve seen others do it beautifully and well.

The idea of radical acceptance has helped me in many ways.

Radical acceptance taught me to stop fighting reality and inevitability – death being a great example, and to stop being angry or hiding or lashing out when someone provokes me or things don’t go the way I wanted them to.

Radical acceptance has helped me shed the bitterness, envy, and anger that kept me trapped in a cycle of suffering, resentment, and jealousy. Radical acceptance has been good for me.

Perhaps most importantly, radical acceptance has helped me see more clearly and learn to hold my experiences with compassion and empathy, not argument and bitterness.

Radical acceptance has also helped me see myself the way my dog or someone who loves me sees me.

This helps me accept who I am and remember the beauty and goodness that lives inside me and wants to come out. I realize other people can’t see it if I hide it.

Like authenticity, radical acceptance is a practice, not a simple decision.

I believe radical acceptance and my hospice experience have helped to prepare me for my inevitable death, which is not all that far away,  and enable me – if I am fortunate – to leave the world lovingly and dignifiedly. That is how I want to die; that is how everybody wants to die, assuming they are willing to think about it and talk about it.

Most people are not.

I still have some of the most beautiful evenings of my life visiting hospice patients who opened up in the most moving and inspiring ways. And we laughed more than I would have ever imagined. Dogs are angels when it comes to helping people leave the world. In death, people are often liberated, free to be honest and see life’s ironies, absurdities, and miracles.

In hospice, there is always at least one person in the family who wants the person they love to hang on, be a fighter, and never quit. They can’t bear to lose them.

The hospice nurses all know that people need to know the people around them are letting them go, and when they are given permission to leave, they do go. I saw this again and again. This is all about accepting death as well as life.

So I’m going with the name the Jon Katz Memorial Garden. That will raise some eyebrows.

It makes me smile every time I write it, so I know it’s a good idea.

Maybe some people will think of me and smile whenever they see a Begonia or feisty Pansy bouncing in an April wind.

_____

“There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,’ my mother explained shortly before leaving me. ‘If you can remember me, I will be with you always.” – Isabel Allende, Eva Luna.