chapter 3; part 6

continued from Chapter 3: part 5

While we have mortality on our minds, you might want to check into the writing of a living will. Simply put, you want to die with dignity and pain- free, if you must die at all. This won’t have a lot of meaning if you’ve never had a serious brush with death or illness and you haven’t seen it happen to those around you.
Get a book from the library or send for a Living Will Kit (I got mine from a university). It’s really a case of finding out what the medical profession is obliged to do and what your rights are.

One point is how you want it handled if you go into heart failure or need resuscitation.

I heard of one terminally ill woman who was adamant about meeting death on her terms, without a network of tubes and wires sticking out of her. To make sure there wouldn’t be a misunderstanding, she taped her living will over her hospital bed for everyone to see. The staff might be perfectly willing to do it your way but there is a danger that your wishes will be buried in your steadily growing medical file at a time when you’re not able to talk about it.

Now, let’s plan your funeral. Hey, why not? Who is a better judge of the way you want your send-off arranged. If you belong to a church, go visit the minister and talk about it. Then write it down and put the information in a file with your will and the other papers you are slowly accumulating.
I was never one to put things off until the last minute, so we had joined the Memorial Society years ago even though we felt uncomfortable making plans when we were still in our thirties.
When the time came to activate the plans, I didn’t have to change a thing. Do you want a service of some kind? A funeral plot or cremation? Where should the ashes go? How much should a funeral cost? Is there money set aside for this?

And what about savings? Once the first shock wears off, you will be thinking constantly about what will happen if the bread winner can’t work, and there isn’t any money coming in. I can only tell my own tale here. We did seek out advice from various sources and then we shook it all down and made some decisions.
We had very little in savings, but our house was paid for and Hal continued to take some writing assignments.

Now we’ve reached consolidation time. You’ve got all your affairs up to date and you’re satisfied you’ve done the basics. Now where will you keep this information? Your lawyer will have a copy of your wills and power of attorney documents but there are other papers such as insurance information, funeral arrangements, all those things.

Sit down at a computer or a typewriter if you’re a little behind the times and write down the number of every bank account, insurance policy, investments, everything. You will now have a record on the computer but also print it or photocopy it and put the information in one place and tell people where that is. It wouldn’t hurt to make copies of everything and give the sealed file to a friend or relative.

Once this is done and you update when necessary, you are free of niggling worries and you can concentrate on the business of living.

continued in chapter 4: part 1