How to Live Forever
Part 1 of our New Series: “Talking About Death Won’t Kill You - and May Help You Live More Joyfully”
Would we really want to live forever? The world’s great thinkers have answered consistently and emphatically, no! That’s because the knowledge of our own mortality sharpens our focus on living. Without death, they argue, life itself could become meaningless.
But there are other ways to live forever - through those around us, who witness and learn from us. How we approach aging, illness, and end of life can teach and leave our loved ones with a sense of wholeness, hope, forgiveness, and love. These are deep experiences that can pass through generations. So you can live forever – no cryogenics needed!
However, this sense of living forever means taking death out of the closet. By really absorbing its truth, we can sharpen our quality of living.
Talking About Death Won’t Kill You – and May Help You Live More Joyfully is a four-part series focused on the profound to the practical. It’s your invitation to feel, think, examine, share, maybe laugh and maybe cry, and hopefully walk away with a sense of confidence and inspiration.
The series is co-sponsored by NH Alliance for End of Life Options, Brookhaven Hospice of NH, and the Portsmouth Public Library.
Part 1: How to Live Forever
Wednesdays, May 18 & 25
6:30 – 8 PM
Sign up for one or both sessions!
We’ll start by examining and clarifying our own thoughts, values, and beliefs around living life fully and how we face the end. It’s the first step toward good conversations with those who matter most about some of life’s most profound questions, including how we approach our dying.
“How to Live Forever” is in two sessions, May 18 and 25. Each is from 6:30 – 8 p.m. via Zoom or a limited number in person at the Portsmouth Public library. To register for in person please click here. The sessions are free (donations greatly appreciated!) but space is limited, so please register early to secure your spot. We encourage you to attend both sessions, but it’s not required.
Session 1, May 18, focuses on the question: How would we change our living if we really accept that we’re going to die? We’ll challenge ourselves to bring this awareness into our daily lives. It’s the foundation for conversations with our loved ones, health care proxy, medical providers, clergy, and others about how we want to approach our end.
Session 2, May 25, offers the opportunity to dig deeper and take on questions in a “death over dinner” format, facilitated small group discussions. It’s a way to practice having the conversations with no pressure, judgment, or expectations – and maybe even laugh a little!
Part 2: Who Do You Trust With Your Life? And Who’s Trusting You with Theirs?
Wednesday, June 8
6:30 – 8 PM
We focus on the medical power of attorney, also called a health care proxy: the person we legally appoint to speak for us when we can’t. What do we need that person to know? Similarly, if we’re the proxy for someone else, what do we need to know from them? We’ll consider choosing a health care proxy for ourselves and what is means to be a proxy for others.
Through facilitated discussion in large and small groups we’ll think about the kinds of treatments we may want or not want, considering questions like quality of life versus longevity, what gives us joy, our concerns and our aspirations, and what we might compromise, or not.
Choosing the right proxy may be the most important decision you’ll make in completing your advance directive, the legal document that spells out your medical preferences if you cannot speak for yourself.
Talking About Death Won’t Kill You . . . and May Help You Live More Joyfully offers questions and insights, not a set of checkbox answers. Thinking about and planning for severe illness and end of life is a process that evolves over time, recognizing that we change, and that our attitudes, concerns, and desires may also change.
Through peer to peer learning and support, the series is aimed at demystifying and normalizing conversations about what matters most in our lives right through to the end, whenever that may be.
The series will resume in September with Part 3 focusing on dementia and other long-term debilitating illnesses, and Part 4 will offer a dying to-do list.
The series is supported with a grant from the NH Charitable Foundation.
Our events are for people at any stage of life and health. Honest conversation about death and dying can help give us meaning, purpose, and focus at any time of our lives – why not start now?