Earlier than my mom died, we spoke brazenly about finish of life and her needs. Mum needed to donate her physique to science. I used to be with mum throughout her dying time and at her dying. I washed my mom on her departure simply as she washed me on my arrival.
I walked beside her because the funeral director wheeled the gurney to the ready hearse out the entrance of the nursing house the place she had spent the final seven months of her life, resulting from superior Alzheimer’s. Maybe this aided me in my very own choice on what to do with my physique after dying.
Annie Whitlocke together with her rescued canines.
As a Buddhist practitioner with over 40 years’ expertise, I’ve taken the Bodhisattva vow, which requires one easy dedication: to place others first, holding much less for oneself. That is necessary to me as it’s a fixed reminder of perpetually being of service to all sentient beings.
Those that know me could be conversant in certainly one of my passions, to rescue severely disabled canines who’ve been abused and uncared for.
Due to this fact, I see my dying as a possibility to serve others, too. Just a few years in the past, I provided my corpse to the division of anatomy and physiology on the College of Melbourne. The college co-ordinates a physique donor program for the needs of anatomical examination and the dear educating and research of anatomy to its medical college students.
Every donated physique is handled with nice care and respect and, on completion of research, is cremated. Following cremation, I’ve requested my kin to scatter my ashes within the ocean.
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To the medical college students who will likely be studying from my physique I gave the division the next letter:
I offer you my physique. As I’ve given it numerous occasions … In love, in concern, in rape, in beginning, in pleasure, in laughter, in tears, in miscarriages, in ache, in menstruation, in menopause and in surgical operations. And at last in dying.