Read the ingredients in this libation and decide to begin practicing using these words as guides to living - as well as sipping.

On no subject are our ideas more wraped and pitiable than on death ...Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony. John Muir

How do I tell you? I just hope you know! We all hope people know how we feel. We all hope our lives have meaning. We all hope we can exit earth with dignity. We all hope. Hope is lovely. But hope is not action. To let people you care about and who care about you know what you really wish for, hope for, sit and talk to them. Write them a letter. Take action. What have you got to lose? You will still have hope! And will gain insight.

Joan in Berkeley took The Last Gift Box message to heart! In the midst of cleaning out our basement's 35 years of detritus as a gift to my children (so THEY don't have to do this) I realized that this "getting rid of stuff" activity has been a gift to myself. Then I saw Emily's Zell's post "Organizing my way back into life" which says it all, beautifully. Another friend, Tina Cole Kreitz, gives workshops and has written a book "The Last Giftbox" that deals with all this "s

I read this recently and it struck a cord with me. Hope it does with you, too. Let me know. Don't do something permanently stupid because you are temporarily upset. Think of this as you work through your real wishes and write them down in The Last Gift Box.

We need to couple our ideas and history with our children's own dreams and journey. We have years, experience, bumps and bruses. We carry the family stories. We want our children to share in them, love them the way we do, to love what we love, do things the way we do things. We often forget they are on their own journey, finding new paths to travel, creating new dreams. The frustration of working on The Last gift Box is our desire to make our plans and ideas clear to our