Just about every month, I find myself posting things here about living in the light of death. The lessons that can be learned, the pain of grief in all it's forms, and the peace that is possible when we learn that death is our constant compainion. What do we do when we accept that death may tap us on the shoulder at any moment? Here are five tasks that Dr. Ira Byock brought to consciousness and that any of us who have worked with dying patients and their families have seen. While these tasks may come to us instinctively, it's also a good thing to be reminded of them - to be able to experience each one.

Those five tasks include:

Saying "I'm sorry" - we've all made mistakes, and it's important to acknowledge them.

Saying "I forgive you" - this includes self-forgiveness, i think, but it's so important to understand that the people in our lives are just as human and filled with frailty and fear as we are - part of letting go of pain includes forgiveness.

Saying "Thank you" - even if the gift was to prompt us to look within at our own fears or teach us how not to behave, all of the people in our lives have given us gifts. The acknowledgement of that is a wonderful gift in and of itself.

Saying "I love you" - can any of us hear or say that enough? Yet all to often, we get so busy that we forget to appreciate the ones we love. Then when they are gone, our grief is compounded by regret at the things we didn't say, and the time we didn't spend with them. and finally,

Saying "Goodbye" - This can be the most profound of all of the tasks, since throughout our lives we have a series of hello's and goodbye's, yet we cling to relationships as though they are permanent things. We must be able to let go of each other, painful as that is, yet within that goodbye can be an even deeper unity in spirit.

These are tasks that we can live each day.