By Bill Herrfeldt
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
Each of us was told long ago that we’d better have a will, or else the state will dispose of our property. That is so true, but what happens to our ideals and the life lessons we have learned, after we are gone?
According to a study conducted by Allianz Life Insurance Company last year, baby boomers said they would be ten times more grateful to receive life lessons from their parents than to get material goods.
Recognizing this, more people than ever are writing what are called “ethical wills” in which they thoughtfully “bequeath” their life’s lessons to loved ones. And while such abstract concepts cannot be given away as tangibly as one’s furniture or investment portfolio, ideals and values are part of one’s legacy, nonetheless, and they can be passed from one generation to the next.
Ethical wills defined
In their simplest form, ethical wills are letters, usually addressed to grown children and grandchildren, recounting family history and expressing hope that the writer will be remembered for certain values. As the name suggests, ethical wills are intended to be spiritual counterparts to the legal documents that dispose of worldly effects.
An ethical will assumes Baines recognized the value of ethical wills to both the person making it and the survivors. ‘’I had a patient whose spiritual suffering was high because he thought there would be no trace of him on the earth when he died,’’ Baines says.
“Our chaplain shared the idea of an ethical will with the patient, and he grabbed it the way a drowning man would grab a life preserver. Even though he wasn’t successful financially or educationally, he loved his family a lot. He wrote down things that mattered and he had a tangible link to the future.’’
“In the late 1980s, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer,” Baines says. “I encouraged him to write me a letter about those things that were important to him and to his life.”