The Year of the Death Plan

Most people don’t just jump into making a death plan unless they’re facing a terminal diagnosis. It seems like something to do ‘later’ or ‘when the time comes’, especially as it can bring up feelings of fear and anxiety.

And so, always pushing it off until later, there is rarely much conversation amongst partners, families, or friends about wishes and preferences, let alone thoughts and feelings, on our inevitable end of life.

The key seems to be in how we engage with death. We can choose to mostly deny or avoid it or we can choose to invite it into our lives as a constant companion that loyally shows us the circular nature of all things.

In choosing the latter, it’s possible that we can begin to experience life more fully while also gaining a greater understanding of our loved ones, including how to better support one another through life *and* death.

Consider having some conversations about anything that’s come up for you recently around death. It may be something personal, something going on in the world, or just your general thoughts about death, including aging and the dying process.

Before most major life events a very important thing occurs; a vision in our minds of how we would like that event to be. Whether it’s a wedding, a move, a birth, etc. - we usually begin with imagining how it will look and feel, then we explore how our values, beliefs, and culture might play a role, and later consider the logistics that must happen between here and there to achieve this vision. Yet few of us spend time imagining the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience - our death.

We’ll spend this quarter considering the big picture of what’s important to us and let that eventually guide us into making smaller, more detailed decisions as part of our personal death plans

As you continue to talk about, and envision, what you would like your end-of-life and eventual death to look like, there is one thing that should be dealt with sooner rather than later - your legal decisions.

Hospitalization, extended recovery, and/or death can occur at any time. If we don’t outline our medical decisions, who handles our finances, and what we want done with our body and our possessions, it can lead to family conflict, heartache, uncertainty, and even more grief. If we do outline our decisions, we can give the gift of clarity, greater ease, and more space for the things that matter to us at the end-of-life.

There are many ways to say goodbye, and just as many reasons why doing so is important. 

Though we may not have control over how or when we die, we do have control of how we extend our farewell that honors who we are, what we value, and those we love. 

During this final stretch in The Year of the Death Plan, we will review ways you can celebate, transition, and commemorate these different phases of the end-of-life process.