How Prepared Are You?
If you had died yesterday – how prepared are your plans of what should happen to your estate and all your personal effects?
What if you were suddenly taken ill and not able to communicate your wishes – would those around you really know the detail of how you wish to be cared for and what you would like to happen regarding your care and your personal affairs?
If you were to be diagnosed with a terminal illness, have you considered what sort of care you would like and also where you would like to be cared for, as you come to the end of your life?
These three topics of conversation are usually the most avoided, but we are in effect avoiding the inevitable and shying away from a fact that we all know to be true.
This cycle of life will at some point come to an end!
As a society we have walked towards making death something we can evade and in doing so we have created a stigma around conversations to do with death and the dying process, labeling them as taboo with some kind of strange belief that if we talk about it we will make it happen sooner.
This of course is not true and talking about your end of life is actually a real support for all your family and those close to you. It also moves us as a society towards bringing normality to the dying process, whereby it can be accepted and embraced for the transition that it truly is, rather than something to be afraid of.
Our bodies have a first breath and a last breath.
We are very good at preparing for that first breath,
but not so good at preparing for our last!
When we have taken our last breath for this life, there is a lot of work to be done for those left behind and it’s irresponsible of us to live with the attitude and assumption that others can just get on with it and sort it all out as we won’t be here!
There is much we can do to support those who will have the job of sorting out our affairs after we die and the more we can prepare – the easier their job will be.
It can be a very challenging time when we lose a loved one, and then on top of that there are many decisions to make, along with all the practicalities to sort out after they have departed. If their wishes have not been fully prepared and recorded, we not only have to cope with the life adjustments that are now required, but also with having to make decisions about what to do with their possessions, belongings and how to best handle their personal affairs.
