• Spend time with people who are important to you
• Create a legacy for those who care about you (letters, tape recording)
• Call or visit an old friend
• Tell your stories to those who will live on
• Accept some compliments and gratitude
• Forgive yourself, and seek to make things right within your own faith
• Say "I love you" "I'm sorry" "forgive me" and "I forgive you"
• Right old wrongs
• Take a "last" trip or two to visit with friends and family
• Say goodbye (or ."until we will meet again")
• Make plans so that care and treatment will be as close as possible to what you want
• Specifically decide about resuscitation, hospi- talization, and if it might be important, artificial feeding
• Choose someone to make decisions for you if you are too sick to make them for yourself, and set up a formal durable power of attorney docu- ment
• Write a will and, if necessary, pass along infor- mation about your job and finances
• Eventually, be at peace with the end to come, and the uncertainty of when you will die

(From Handbook for Mortals: Guidance for People Facing Serious Illness. By Joanne Lynn & Joan Harrold, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.)