Dear friends,
I'd be hard put to list all the causes and groups I'm asked to join, both on Facebook and via that old method, email. Something's come through in the past few days that makes me want to "join," in the fullest sense of the word.
Engage with Grace: The One Slide Project is an astonishingly simple idea that literally touches everyone. Alexandra ("Alex") Drane, whose sister-in-law almost died in the hospital (had her family been less attentive - and at age 32 of glioblastoma* seven months post diagnosis - grab your tissues and see the backstory) has set in motion a talking/blogging/thinking campaign to get us to deeply consider how we want to die.
Alex's one slide has five conversation-starter questions about dying, really simple stuff like: given the choice, do you want to die at home or in the hospital; do you want medical intervention or not...etc (see below) - and then she did the networking thing. Now bloggers have agreed to post her message about the campaign as a Thanksgiving project. We're all posting the same message - with a lead-in of our choosing on Nov 26 - and leaving it up throughout the holiday weekend (yay! an enforced break from blogging - my family will be so happy).
There's also a great short video (as in a minute) with Alex explaining how she used the very best of networking principles to keep this really really simple.
I have lots of blogger friends reading here, more than I know about, and you've got lots of friends so...please direct them to the group on Facebook and/or ask them to contact me and I'll send the note that we're all posting.
Finally, why does this touch me when I let so much else pass by without really "joining?" My mother died in the hospital, which she did not want to do, her "Do Not Resuscitate" order was not enforced...and my best friend, Linda, who wanted to die at home, also died in the hospital...and, as many of my close friends here know, her husband died of *glioblastoma eighteen months later. So I connect in that beating, pulsating, deepest place with what Alex is doing.
Love,
Jessica
