How To Live Forever
A Guide to Writing the Final Chapter of Your Life Story KIMBERLY A. BEST, RN, MA
Specializing in Elder Mediation, Family and Relationship Mediation and Conflict Coaching
I have sat with scores of people at the end of their lives, and in most cases that I have seen, people were dying with personal, financial, and relational issues that are unresolved. As a result, families were forced to make lastminute decisions without any knowledge of what the dying person wanted. Often, these decisions led to increased suffering for the patient and literally tore families apart. It has become clear that planning and having critical conversations ahead of time could have saved countless hours, regrets, challenges, and even dollars for these people and their families. Perhaps even more importantly, people are ending their lives with experiences, life lessons, and stories unshared that will be lost to their families and generations to come because they ran out of time. “Kimberly Best has written a wonderful, poignant, inspiring, immensely useful, down-to-earth book—not just about how to prepare for dying but how to live fully in anticipation of death. The seamless combination of stirring human stories, how-to lists, and sensible advice make it incredibly readable, moving and practical.”
—Kenneth Cloke, mediator and arbitrator for the Center for Dispute Resolution and the author of The Crossroads of Conflict Your life is a story, and it’s yours to write, all the way through to the end. There are numerous decisions to be made regarding aging, illness, and end-of-life issues, but many people put off those decisions until it’s too late. We may be purposeful in planning for our lives, but we often leave the last piece, the final chapter, undefined.
How to Live Forever seeks to lay a foundation for people to live well in the time they have, to leave their stories behind as their legacies, and to write their own best ending so that their final wishes can be honored. Author Kimberly Best encourages you to consider what you want the final chapter of your life to look and feel like, providing you with tools and prompts that can help you have difficult conversations regarding legal decisions, health care plans, relationships, and death and dying. If we recognize the finite nature of our days, we can live purposefully, plan ahead for the end of our life story, and die without regret, living fully to the end and finishing well.
Kimberly A. Best, RN, MA, is a professional conflict mediator focusing on conflict coaching, family mediation, and elder care mediation. She holds a master’s degree in conflict management from Lipscomb University. She spent her early career as a registered nurse in intensive care, trauma, and emergency medicine, where she gained valuable experience in the medical system. A mother and grandmother, she currently lives in Franklin, Tennessee, where she runs her mediation practice, Best Conflict Solutions.