Legacy of the Heart
Excerpts from Legacy of the Heart:
Writing Your Own Spiritual Will, pp. 1 & 2
ISBN: 1-931002-46-0
Petaluma, 2005
Recently, an acquaintance of mine had the misfortune of losing his Dad in an automobile accident. As the only child, it fell to Dan to go through the apartment where his Dad had lived alone since the death of his wife three years earlier.
As Dan cleaned out the apartment, he hoped to find some kind of personal message that his Dad might have left for him. “ I just wanted a note, an old letter, something to remind me of my Dad. I found nothing. It made me feel kind 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 (the terms are used interchangeably.) A spiritual will is a way to share your values with your family in the same manner that a legal will provides instructions for passing on your property and material possessions....
Writing a spiritual will is your final gift to the people who have been most important to you. If you find that you haven’t said, “I love you” nearly enough in life, let all those inhibitions go when you write your farewell letter. This is a great opportunity, your last chance to tell your loved ones how you feel about them and the life you have shared together. This is your own personal “Legacy of the Heart.”
