By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
I’ll ask the reader to be patient. There is a point to this story. It just may take a moment to get to it. A recent discussion with a dear friend prompted these thoughts, and I think they may be of some benefit to many who are reading this. It is certainly not a new topic, but it is complex and confounding for many of us.
We are all dying. One philosopher rightly said that from the moment you are born, really from the moment you are conceived, you begin to die. Each day is one day less in your life. Another equated life to being on death row, and living is just part of waiting your turn in the chair or chamber. Truly, we are all just one breath, one heartbeat away from leaving the physical world.
There are surely plenty of spiritual and philosophical points we could talk about regarding death. Some of us believe in life beyond death and that what we do in this life will have a bearing on our destination beyond this life. For any of you who are big Gladiator movie fans, you immediately thought of the famous quote of Maximus as he prepared his men for a furious battle to come. Maximus says, “Hold the line! Stay with me! If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled, for you are in Elysium (Heaven) and you’re already dead! Brothers, what we do in this life…echoes in eternity”. There are many beliefs in what happens after physical death, including those who believe that there is nothing at all after death, and we just return to the earth. I have had long debates, some fruitful and some fruitless, regarding our final destination. I’ll be happy to talk with you about it anytime, but for this commentary, I want to talk about the physical, practical side of physical death.
2022 mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control lists a total of unintentional injury deaths in the U.S. that year as 227,039. For our population, that is 68 sudden deaths out of every 100,000 people, and it was ranked the third highest cause of overall death. There were 44,534 unintentional falls causing death; 44,534 deaths from motor vehicle traffic accidents; and those dying from accidental poisoning were 102,958. These were all people who probably thought they had things they could do tomorrow, but tomorrow just never came for them. Then there are the suicides, homicides, drug overdoses, and sudden medical conditions like cardiac arrest (the number one cause of sudden death, roughly 350,000 each year in the U.S.).
In fact, there are roughly 3 million people who died in 2023 at various ages and for various reasons. The old joke (be it morbid) is that the mortality rate for humans is 100 percent. If you live, you will eventually stop doing that.
Some of us get a “heads up” that our time may be short. We go to the doctor, and they determine that we have an illness that will make the earthly exit more predictable. But even in that, there is an element of uncertainty. We are certainly living longer. According to the CDC, of the 2,426,775 people in 2022 ages 65 and up who died, deaths by age group per 100,000 people were 1978.7 (65-74), 4708.2 (75-84), and 14,389.6 (85 and older).
In 2024, which is still being tallied, the projection is 2,851,324 people who went on to the great mystery beyond this physical life.
People do various things to prepare for the afterlife, even if they don’t think there is one. One of those things is planning what will be done in the last moments of life and what will be done with the things that are left behind. Naked you come into the world, and naked you will go out. Hopefully, you have built relationships or established connections with organizations that will give you peace by leaving your earthly belongings to them.
The cost of creating a will can be $20 to $200 if you do it yourself. Hiring an attorney turns that adventure into a $100 to $1,000 proposition. The financial power of attorney can range from $50 using an online template or $150 to $500 if you use an attorney. Add that much again for the medical power of attorney or medical directive document (what you want done if you become incapable of making the decision). So, for the trio of legal documents, you could be looking at between $120 and $2,000. And while it might seem attractive to “do-it-yourself”, keep in mind that your paperwork is literally a matter of life and death. Some folks will be comfortable with basically taking their lives in their own hands, while others, like me, prefer a professional and expert for these life decisions.
Even if you don’t have much, you can be sure that either family or friends will be stressed at figuring out what to do with your estate. And imagine the mental trauma your wife or family will go through in making those decisions, like whether to keep you on a machine if you succumb to an unresponsive wakefulness syndrome and you have little to no hope of recovery. While we don’t like to think of these things, there is a distinct possibility that we will all face them. And we will likely never know it is hitting us until we are in the throes of it.
Tribal members have an excellent resource at their disposal to help deal with this troubling but necessary preparation for end-of-life. The EBCI Legal Assistance Office (LAO) helps enrolled members with a variety of legal needs, including end-of-life planning. I can tell you from personal experience that they are smart, attentive, and accommodating in helping to create and update your will, medical, and financial powers of attorney (you do need both). And when disaster strikes and destroys your documents, the LAO is a repository of your information, and they can recreate and help you restore the protection you have through these documents. It doesn’t take long for the folks in that office to help you achieve peace of mind through knowing that you have taken as much control of your end-of-life decisions as possible.
In addition to end-of-life planning, the LAO helps with Family Safety parent representation referrals, EBCI employee counselling, child custody cases, adult guardianship issues, and provides community education, self-help resources, and general guidance. Their primary contact information is (828) 359-7400 by phone and legalhelp@ebci-nsn.com. The LAO office currently includes attorneys Stephanie LePre, Kelly Hebrank, Jerad Davis, Christen Justice, and paralegals Hali Jenkins and Heather Madden.
The term memento mori (translated from Latin as “remember your death”) comes from ancient Roman history. After a Roman military victory, it was common to have a large parade featuring all the Roman soldiers who had achieved the victory. Each soldier would drive his chariot accompanied by their armor-bearer. Soldiers could “get the big head” and think they were invincible. Psychology-Spot.com says, “The phrase ‘memento mori’ was used to remind those great men that regardless of their exploits and glories, the epilogue would be the same for everyone. In this way, when a victorious general was celebrated in a procession through the streets of the city, he was also reminded of his death to prevent him from incurring excessive pride.”
In those moments, like those victory parades, it was the armor-bearer’s responsibility to get in the soldier’s ear and say “memento mori”. In other words, don’t get too big for your britches and remember you are mortal just like the rest of us. The grave is the great leveling tool that puts us on the same level and makes us common.
Especially when we are young, we may not say it, but we believe we will live forever. However, history doesn’t bear that out, at least in the physical realm. For yourself and for your loved ones, be as prepared as possible for what will come, will likely come at an unexpected time.
