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Title: Writing an Ethical Will or Legacy Letter
Anyone who has reached the age of 60 has most likely encountered:
• The legal documents portfolio: a written will, a durable power of attorney form, a POLST form, and a gift list (what you want someone to inherit.)
• After the death of a a loved one realizing you are left with questions—or wanting to know more about how they lived their life.
• The feeling you want to have something true about your life to give to others.
You may have taken care of your assets, and you may have made your wishes known through your Advanced Directives. Some of us have started writing the memoir. But there may be a piece missing.

An ethical will or a legacy letter is a format for sharing your values along with your story, leaving your spiritual blessings, and finally it’s a way of forgiving and asking for forgiveness.

I see the purpose of an ethical will/spiritual legacy as twofold:
1. “An offering of wisdom from one life to another”—a most intimate and final gift.
2. An opportunity for the writer to examine the meaning in his or her own life.
This session will review in more detail the history and components of writing your legacy. If folks want to work together on this we can organize follow up sessions. After this session I will provide detailed written instructions and background material.

This work builds on earlier classes offered at Methow at Home on death and dying as well as memoir writing.

Diane Miller is the presenter/facilitator
Her background is in Public Health where she worked as a free clinical administrator and later the Director of Planning, Marketing and Community Relations for San Francisco General Hospital, the City’s public hospital. She is also a practicing Buddhist for the last 35 years, who lived in residence at the San Francisco Zen Center (and Tassajara Monastery) for ten years. Her latest passion is Book Arts and learning to create part of the Ethical Will/Legacy Letter as an Artist’s Book.