To Live With No Regrets

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Death is a transition for the dying -- and for those left behind

I recently stopped by the house of our friends Jack Heckelman and Linda Bergh for an evening of singing and music. Like the others gathered there, I was part of an extended community the two had created over the years. Jack was up and sitting with the group, weaker than when we last saw him, taking oxygen but present and alert. Linda told us that her husband had reached a turning point that day. He'd moved from holding on to life to preparing himself for impending death. Jack died four days later.

When Jack was diagnosed with cancer last fall, Jack and Linda decided that they wanted to share their journey with family and friends. They looked upon his dying as a natural event in life and wanted to be open about it, rather than being in denial. So friends and family were linked by special gatherings to support Jack and Linda on the journey, and by a Web site where the process was shared with friends around the world.

Six months later, as Jack's cancer spread, he and Linda began to welcome death with intention and gratitude. Before he and Linda took their last trip together, Jack completed his ethical will -- a tradition of stating the values and beliefs that the dying hope will live on among those they leave behind. As friends came to visit or to join in a night of singing, they asked Jack questions: Are you afraid? Why not? What do you see happening to you after you die? Jack gladly answered, understanding their curiosity about such a huge transition.

"Those conversations were remarkable," Linda says. "They shouldn't be unusual, but they were." They shared some of these thoughts on the Web site. Linda also wrote about the challenges of being a caregiver. And in the weeks just before his death, she candidly shared with Jack her struggle to reconcile her roles as caregiver and spouse -- telling him the truth and working things through even when he was dying.

Their openness was partly a reflection of the fact that both were well-acquainted with death. Jack had nursed his first wife of 40 years for more than a decade as a degenerative muscle disease slowly took her life. At first he turned his engineer's mind to creating an accessible mobile home in which they could travel despite her illness. By the end he was feeding her through a stomach tube and communicating with blinks and hand pressure. Throughout it all, his passion for the earth and desire to be of service to it remained strong. So did his taste for adventure. He celebrated his 75th birthday by skydiving.

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