Some people are not interested or not comfortable in discussing spiritual issues with their health care practitioner. Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs are it may help to take some time to consider the following "Four Rs for the Spirit" (Lynn J. and Harold J. Handbook for Mortals. Oxford University Press, 1999, pg 30).

• Remembering - Take time to reflect on your life and its events. What were your accomplishments? What must be left undone? Who influenced you, for better or worse, and whose lives did you influence? Who did you love? Who do you love? What do those relationships mean to you now?
  
  
• Reassessing - Take time to see your life as a whole. You may ask what your life really added up to or who you really were. You might even share your thoughts with those who know and love you.
  
  
• Reconciling - Try to be at peace with yourself. You may need to reconcile yourself to not having done the things you always wanted to do. You may need to forgive yourself for your shortcomings, or forgive those who hurt or disappoint you. You may need to ask others to forgive you. Reconciliation with your imperfections - and those of others - can help you find peace.
  
  
• Reuniting - Try to be at peace with those you love. Most of us have various relationships disrupted over our lifetime from death, anger, relocation, and the many forces that push people apart. As serious illness threatens, it is important to come together with family and friends, when you can, and to have the chance to say farewells. Don't wait too long to try to see that long-estranged sister or son, or even to sit awhile with a friend from long ago. If you believe in some kind of hereafter or heaven, that afterlife can also be where our souls will be reunited with those who have died before us.