Ethical Wills: Putting Your Values on Paper

Doctor and hospice director Barry K. Baines guides the dying on taking charge of the emotional legacies they leave behind in Ethical Wills: Putting Your Values on Paper. Defining an ethical will as ""a vehicle for clarifying and communicating the meaning in our lives to our families and communities,"" Baines draws on an ancient practice that he has put to use in hospice work with more than 3,000 people as they prepared for death. A benefit to the dying, their loved ones and people not facing an imminent death but wanting to clarify and communicate their experience, ethical wills can be letters, lists, confessions, requests and a host of other kinds of communication. Baines discusses their history, their significance and how to make them, with numerous examples. ( Feb.)