A Living Eulogy for a M.A.I.D. Patient

The medical aid in dying legislation allows patients to apply for and take an end-of-life cocktail. This is new to people in hospice.  We are, I am, still sorting through and sitting with the differences. For example, as Interfaith spiritual hospice care, I create eulogies and memorial services after the patient dies. 

This one was spoken to my patient.  He liked it...and I read it on his deathday...to him before he drank his EOL cocktail. He died eight minutes later, as we watched and companion-ed him.

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Eulogy & Prayer for L.C. 
September 4, 2021 9 AM PDT
 
May all that we say
and all that we do be in harmony with thee,
God within me,
God beyond me…
Maker of the Trees.
 
Today L.C. will meet the Maker of Trees.
A carpenter, the grandson of a farmer, brother, and uncle to his family but also a friend, and teacher to the wider world…the teacher for many young men to be better in the world… to be makers in the world.
 
Holy One of Many Names, We ask that OUR hearts be open to see more clearly...To see your presence is with us all &…always…underneath the many misunderstandings of love that get in the way of seeing. Open OUR hearts now…that we might move motes and logs from our eyes…to see deeper and more clearly….       

The light we can see with our eyes goes out gently at our end…but this man has made a life around following a more evergreen light – your everlasting light–to the best of his ability, which is all that you ask of us, here while on this Earth.
 
Maker of all THINGS, Receive this carpenter, who taught many of your sons the skills of life crafting…of responsibility and of forming useful things… of fixing things… making broken parts into a whole to the best of his ability.
 
These teachings form his legacy…like a rock thrown into a still pool, the ripples expand from this point and move outward…growing more of itself as it moves into the world, making waves, which meet others to create more waves…of itself – of kindness, responsibility and love… He leaves this world a better place for his brother, sister, nephews and family but also for the greater world… in the legacy of teaching responsibility, kindness, and being a maker of things…not a destroyer.
 
He now places the unfinished projects of his heart into your care waiting…as seeds in good soil.
 
Receive this carpenter not because he used what he had to create more good, which he did, but simply because of love…he is a beloved son who has finally come home… & come home to your call.  And he has met that call by reaching back to you, responding to your call with the same consideration and kindness for others, which formed his life.
 
It is our honor here, to wait with L.C. on this edge of life, surrounded by and supported by the arms of God, the Maker of All Things…

May he feel this love now and be welcomed home…to the place we all come from …and the place to which we will all go, when it is our time.
 
May all that we say
and all that we do be in harmony with thee,
God within me,
God beyond me…
Maker of the Trees.
 
Amen.