What do you want to leave as your memory? Explore the concept of "spiritual wills".
"I Wanted My Kids to Know Me"

Recently, an acquaintance of mine had the terrible misfortune to lose his Dad in a car accident. As the only child, it fell to Dan to go through his Dad's apartment where his father had lived alone since the death of his wife three years before. He told me that as he cleaned out the apartment, he was hoping to find some kind of personal note that his Dad might have left for him. To his great disappointment, he found nothing. "I just wanted a note, an old letter, something to remind me of my Dad. I found nothing. It made me feel sort of empty, like I was missing something."

That "something missing" is being provided more and more frequently these days by people who have rediscovered the ancient practice of drawing up a spiritual or ethical will. A spiritual will is a way to share your values with your family in the same way that a legal will provides instructions for passing on your property and possessions. Some have described a spiritual will as a love letter to your family and friends. In it you have a chance to tell your spouse or kids what was important to you in life, what you believed in and hoped and prayed for. You can put on paper family stories, ask for forgiveness, relate your most precious memories of them, the way you remember your daughter in her first prom dress and the time your then three year old son ran out of your house buck naked. Maybe you can tell them things about yourself growing up as the kid they never knew, the lessons you learned from life, that special teacher who turned your life around.