If We Are Not Promised Tomorrow, How Will I Live Today?
This reflection is part of Comfort Notes, an ongoing series exploring the questions, insights, and human moments that emerge from our work with Medical Aid in Dying.
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Here in Vermont, our trees are glowing red and gold, leaves are falling, and tomorrow will not look like today.
The changes bring me back to a question raised at the summer gathering of The Comfort Project team and the professionals we work with:
"If we are not promised tomorrow, how will I live today?"
My perspective on that question became clearer when we received an email the other day from the son of a woman I'll call Cindy, who had been planning to come to Vermont to pursue Medical Aid in Dying.
Cindy never made it here. Her health declined before she could make the journey, and she died before fulfilling that wish.
Her son wrote:
“Cindy passed away this afternoon.
Thank you thank you thank you for all you all did to support my mom (and us all) and to give her a sense of agency during this very difficult time.
Though she was not able to make it there to fulfill her vision, the planning and the idea of it did lift her spirits immensely.
With love and gratitude for what you do and how you do it.”
I've returned to those last four words several times: “how you do it”.
What we do at The Comfort Project revolves around the many details that accompany a planned death.
Yet the experience people have while we're tending to those details matters just as much. Perhaps even more than we realize.
It's the warmth in that first phone call. It's the care we take in explaining something difficult, especially when the answer isn't what someone hoped to hear. It's the extra effort behind the scenes so that we can sometimes say, "We found a way to make it work!"
And sometimes it's simply staying present and calm when there is no solution to offer.
Cindy's story reminds me that sometimes the most meaningful thing we offer isn't an outcome at all. It's the reassurance of knowing there's another possibility, and that someone is willing to help.
Although she never arrived in Vermont, knowing the option of Medical Aid in Dying was available to her, and caring people were willing to help her navigate it, made a difference.
This work continually invites us to pay attention to how we show up: caring and compassionate, while perfectly imperfect, and always learning.
We choose to be real with each other. We use our time together to reflect on how we convey difficult news, how we hold space for uncertainty, and how we interact with those who choose to work with us.
Each family and each moment offers another opportunity to return to this practice. Perhaps that's what this question is really inviting us to consider. Not whether things unfold according to plans, but how we show up in the moments we share.
The golden leaves outside my window won't be here much longer. I watch them flutter downward leaving a beautiful carpet on the forest floor.
The landscape will keep changing, and so will we. My hope is that, whatever tomorrow brings, may we all remember the value of the “how” - how we touch one another's lives.
It's an honor,
Leslie Zucker
Executive Director
The Comfort Project
P.S. In the next Comfort Note, I’ll share about our recent housewarming event at Tranquility House, where we now welcome clients for their final days.
