[B]RATTLEBORO — Susan Parris was grieving her father’s death a decade ago when she remembered her elementary school teacher deeming the Louvre in France the greatest museum in the world.
“I thought, ‘What would I regret if I died right now?’ She had said, ‘You should go.’ And so I did.”
As executive director of Brattleboro Area Hospice, Parris is known for leading an organization that helps people with loss. But her two decades of experience have revealed much about life.
“Working here, you have a heightened sense of mortality and how precious our time is,” she says. “I’d like to help inspire people toward doing the things they’ve always wanted to do.”
And so on a Memorial Day weekend that’s both a window of remembrance and rebirth after winter, Parris is promoting her nonprofit organization’s new “A Year Well Lived” campaign.
“What have you always wanted to do?” the company website asks. “This is not a new year’s resolution. This is an intention for you to breathe life into this year.”
The public engagement project is offering several avenues — a downtown chalkboard, a social media tag (#AYWL) and fill-in-the-blank postcards with the words “This year I’m going to …” — to contemplate and communicate ideas.
Brattleboro Area Hospice, while offering traditional services, is known for thinking outside the box. Its Hallowell Singers, launched in 2003, was one of the first bedside choirs in the nation, while its Death Cafe discussion groups, begun a decade later, introduced an international model to the state.
Parris knows an organization that helps people let go might not seem the place to spur them to seize the day. But she recalls a recent traveling show in town. Passersby who saw its “Wake Up to Dying” banner flinched. But those who spotted a “Before I Die” chalkboard underneath stepped forward.
And so when Parris’ communications consultant asked “is there any kind of project you’d like to do?” she remembered both the chalkboard (“it brings up this spontaneous hope”) and the bestselling MTV-inspired book “What Do You Want to Do Before You Die?” to come up with “A Year Well Lived.”
The instructions are simple: “Write something that you have always wanted to do.”
“Whatever you want to do, this isn’t a little resolution that sits on the shelf,” the project’s website says. “This is a decision to make this year — and every year — A Year Well Lived.”
A chalkboard for writing intentions, now at hospice’s Experienced Goods thrift shop at 77 Flat St., will be outside Zephyr Designs at 129 Main St. during downtown’s June 2 Gallery Walk. People also can find postcards at the hospice at 191 Canal St. and online at brattleborohospice.org/a-year-well-lived.
“It’s a shock when someone you know dies, but it also can be a gift so you wake up and pay attention,” Parris says. “Life is busy and sometimes you put aside those things that ultimately are meaningful. I would love to encourage people to consider what is important and make that a priority.”
