Writing an ethical will or legacy letter

• What is an ethical will or legacy letter?
• Books that may be helpful
• Pat's ethical wills workshop

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“We are such spendthrifts with our lives. The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”
~ Paul Newman, as reported in his New York Times obituary

What is an ethical will or legacy letter?
Also called a legacy letter, a life letter, a love will, a testament, and an “ending note,” it is a way to
• Document (or record) and share your values, beliefs, life's lessons, hopes for survivors.
• Express appreciation of (and maybe to) those who significantly shaped or affected your life or brought you special joy, pleasure, happy memories, etc.
• Express love, regrets, apologies, forgiveness (maybe seeking reconciliation or resolution of unfinished business)
• Share your spiritual autobiography—how you arrived at what you believe, and how your life reflects those beliefs
• Tell the story of your life or key parts of it —who you are, how you lived, who you loved, what you want people to know or understand about you, trying as much as possible to tell your life in your own, recognizable voice
• Collect and pass on your family history, whether of the family members who came before you, your own generation, the children who came after you, or all of these.
• Articulate your wishes about what happens to you as and after you die.
• Articulate your hopes and wishes for what happens to your survivors after you die (and if that includes “I hope you suffer” or equivalent, get those feelings off your chest, write them down, and then burn them).
• Bequeath values, not valuables.

"Never doubt that you can change history. You already have."
~ Marge Piercy, novelist

The Beneficial Effects of Life Story and Legacy Writing by Pat McNees (Journal of Geriatric Care Management, Spring 2009)

The Lecture of My Life. New York's 92 Street Y is inaugurating this new series of leading figures reflecting on their life experiences, with Governor Mario Cuomo delivering the first lecture, in January 2010. Great idea for any community!

Ten-year-old with Flint roots wins military child of the year award. The father of Willie Banks III died when Willie was five, but wrote his son six letters to guide him. "Willie III receives one letter every five years. They include life instructions, lessons and encouragement." ~ Beata Mostafavi,Flint Journal, 3-19-10

"Obviously, none of us live forever," said Wade Matthews, 76, a retired diplomat, avid birder and head of the Sarasota chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "We'd all like to see a little bit of the things we think are worthwhile passed on, partly for the historical record and partly for the hope that some of these ideas might be adopted by other people."
~ quoteed in the story Capturing seniors' stories while she still can, by David Ball (Herald Tribune, 2-10-2010--check out the box, "Words to the Wise")

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BOOKS THAT MAY BE HELPFUL:

· Ashe, Arthur and Arnold Rampersad. Days of Grace: A Memoir (the last chapter, Dear Camera, is a moving legacy letter to his daughter)

· Baines, Barry. Ethical Wills: Putting Your Values on Paper. Very basic. On his website you’ll find many examples of ethical wills.

· Blachman, Linda. Another Morning: Voices of Truth and Hope from Mothers with Cancer


· Ashe, Arthur and Arnold Rampersad. Days of Grace: A Memoir (the last chapter, Dear Camera, is a moving legacy letter to his daughter)

· Baines, Barry. Ethical Wills: Putting Your Values on Paper. Very basic. On his website you’ll find many examples of ethical wills.

· Byock, Ira. The Four Things That Matter Most: A Book About Living

· Callanan, Maggie and Patricia Kelley. Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying (two hospice nurses provide "a gentle way to think about the unthinkable" and "how to recognize, understand, and respond to a dying person’s messages")

· Frankl, Viktor E. Man's search for meaning (Originally titled From Death Camp to Existentialism, a psychiatrist's experience in the death camps of Auschwitz helps him humanize psychiatry. May help you think through what's important in your life.

· Freed, Rachael. Women's Lives, Women's Legacies: Passing Your Beliefs & Blessings to Future Generations. Excellent for exploring aspects of being a woman.

· Gottlieb, Daniel. Letters to Sam: A Grandfather's Lessons on Love, Loss, and the Gifts of Life (a special-needs grandfather provides insights for his special-needs grandson)

· McCord, Bill. The Gift of You: How to Tell Your Loved Ones Who You Really Are

· Phifer, Nan. Memoirs of the Soul: Writing Your Spiritual Autobiography

· Riemer, Rabbi Jack and Nathaniel Stampfer. So That Your Values Will Live On: Ethical Wills and How to Prepare Them. Many examples, with an emphasis on Jewish ethical wills.

· Turnbull, Susan. The Wealth of Your Life; A Step-by-Step Guide for Creating Your Ethical Will and Across Generations: A 5-Step Guide for Creating an Expression of Donor Intent

Not Quite What I Was Planning, NPR's delightful slideshow of images and text from the book Not Quite What I Was Planning:Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, edited by Rachel Fershleisher and Larry Smith, based on the six-word memoirs of the storytelling magazine Smith.

The Violinist in the Metro
If you are collecting other people's wisdom as your legacy, consider including the following story from the Washington Post:
Pearls Before Breakfast”, by Gene Weingarten (April 8, 2007). Here's one paragraph from Weingarten's story, one lesson from which is "practice mindfulness":

"There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away."

"So much happens to us all over the years. So much has happened within us and through us. We are to take time to remember what we can about it and what we dare. That's what taking the time to enter the room (called "Remember") means, I think. It means taking time to remember on purpose. It means not picking up a book for once or turning on the radio, but letting the mind journey gravely, deliberately, back through the years that have gone by but are not gone. It means a deeper, slower kind of remembering; it means remembering as a searching and finding. The room is there for all of us to enter if we choose."
~~ Frederick Buechner , “A Room Called Remember” from the book Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons

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If you had only one hour to live and the only way you could communicate with survivors was to leave them a letter, what would you write — and to whom would you write it?

Events like Katrina remind us of the fragility of life.The revival of an old Jewish tradition given new momentum by the events of September 11, the ethical will is not legally binding; it is a message from the heart. I don't like the phrase myself (it sounds both preachy and legalistic), and welcome such alternatives as "ending note," "legacy letter," "love will," "testament", "lifeletter," or "farewell with love and instructions." Such a letter can be both a vehicle for self-exploration and a gift to yourself and loved ones. You may share it while you are alive, or leave it to be read when you are gone. It can be as short as one page or as long as a full memoir or family history.

Such a letter can also mean worlds to survivors. A widower writing in Newsweek says, "No matter how close my wife and I were, no matter how much we loved each other, and no matter how many heartwarming memories I have of our togetherness, I don't have any tangible record of her heart speaking to mine. And how I wish I did....When Marion was alive, I never gave it a thought. Now I wish I had her words to read and reread....I have pictures — even a couple of collections of slides on videocassette. What I don't have, in black or blue on white, are her thoughts"

Such legacy letters are often written at transition points such as marriage, childbirth, a major illness, or simply arriving at that point when you see more life behind you than in front of you. Candidly assessing your life experiences and values, trying to make sense of the world or your life, reminding your loved ones and friends how you lived your life, and figuring out where your values came from and which values and life lessons you want to pass on to the next generation can energize you and change the way you see your life.

Your last will and testament disposes of all your earthly goods — who gets which valuables, what you want your survivors to have. Your living will spells out the kind of medical care you want when you can no longer care for yourself (should they shut off the ventilator when all hope seems lost, or should they do everything possible to save you?). Your letter of intent (see Kristie Miller's, on this website) spells out the things that would make you happy should you experience a disabling health event, so that you can't care for yourself and might not be able to express yourself.

Your life letter or ethical will — let's come up with a better term for this heartfelt message to your survivors — tells your survivors what you want them to know. It conveys expressions of love, blessings,personal and family stories you treasure; it articulates what you value and want to be remembered for, what you hope your survivors learn from you or want your children and grandchildren never to forget. This message can be expressed in a one-page letter, a collection of messages, as a videotape of you expressing yourself — even as a newspaper article. It could involve writing memoirs or an autobiography (see link below to an Atlanta Journal story). The Financial Planning Association reports from survey results that these "non-financial leave-behinds" are ten times more important to most people than their parents' financial legacy.

Here's an example: write a letter telling your son, daughter, partner, or sibling all the things you love about them, and what you especially remember of your life together. If you're planning to join your life with another's, or planning to have a child together, you might commit to paper the things that matter to you — your ideals, hopes, fears, and expectations. If you've just had a child, you might want to voice your feelings about the occasion and your hopes for the child (see Michael Kilian's "message of hope for a newborn," posted on this website, published when his son was born). You might take a series of photos from the family album (do it before they're carried off by a hurricane — get a CD made of the best and send copies to the family) and tell stories about what was happening at the time. If your professional work has been especially meaningful, and you have shelves or drawers of documents worth preserving, you might want to spell out to your heirs what you want them to do to preserve your professional legacy. If you want your heirs to support certain causes, here is a chance to explain which ones, and why — and why you led your life the way you did. There are many approaches to writing (speaking, taping) this kind of legacy.
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Pat's ethical wills workshop.

You're in good health — why be so morbid? Participants in Pat's workshop on the ethical will (or "personal legacy letter") at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD, were energized by the experience of facing their possible demise (their "sell-by date"), and in the final (surprisingly upbeat) session found it a great relief to write what they wanted on their tombstone and to frankly discuss their wishes for their funeral (or cremation, or body donated to science!). This definitely nontraditional writing workshop provides a safe (neutral) place to explore important elements of one's life and to write messages that are often, by turns, tender, amusing, intensely personal, and sure to be valued by those who receive them. Pat provides a sequence of exercises to help you capture the memories, hopes, wishes, apologies, explanations, and other thoughts important for you to convey to your survivors. You might choose to tell stories or to write about what you feel is important in life. You might put into perspective a dramatic emotional episode in your life with your child (partner, friend). You might explain why you are leaving money to save the coral reefs (or whatever). You might choose to write about important life choices, experiences, achievements, mistakes, family traditions, important influences, beliefs, convictions, hopes, or life lessons (often wrapped in life stories). You might decide to tell the stories behind favorite possessions you will pass along to others; or to explain why you are providing for legacies to charitable or other organizations; or to explain why you believe what you believe; or to articulate your preferences for decisions about your final care, death, dying, and remembrance. And you might decide that you want to leave your ethical will both as a print and video or audio document, so your survivors can hear what you have to say in your own voice.
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Psychiatry as a performance art

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"Writing about [events in my life] has been a way of processing them. Not only tragedies like the deaths of my sons, but other things like learning of my adoption as an adult and my search for my birthmother. These are life-altering experiences and writing about something is a good way to figure out what to make of it.
"Patients, of course, are an endless source of inspiration and stories. Psychiatry is a performance art. We talk with people; they tell us their secrets and their pain. They benefit from the conversations or not. But it’s all words in the air; our case notes are sealed and unless we write something down, the experiences are lost except to our memories. But we’re changed by these stories just as our patients are and the truths they lead us to are worth preserving. Writing down what we have learned also constitutes a kind of “ethical will,” something to convey to succeeding generations in the same way that we distribute our property. I think that we have some obligation before we die to enunciate whatever we think we’ve learned about life. So that was also a motivation to write these books, because I thought that whether anybody buys them or not, my children and their children will have this gift from me."
~ Gordon Livingston, MD, author of Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now and And Never Stop Dancing, interviewed by Bruce Hershfield for Maryland Psychiatrist

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For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.
~ attributed to actress Audrey Hepburn