Columnists
Ditchin’ and hoping
In the olden days, when it came to picking a restaurant, our dialogue often went something like this. “What do you feel like eating?” “I don’t care. You pick.” “How about burgers?” “No, I don’t want burgers.” “What do you want?” “I don’t care. You pick?” Eventually, we’d just go for whatever the first choice was and neither one of us would have been terribly happy about it. A lot of our decisions were made that way. Movies, meals, wine, holidays, carpets, paint colours, cars and computers. And then? Well, and then one day we just made ourselves perfectly clear about what we did and did not like. It just made sense to get what we really wanted. Life is far too short to be miserable about making the wrong choices. And here I sit, thinking about choices. A friend suggested the topic for this column and, as it turns out, it’s about making your choice, your decisions, known to your family and friends. It’s about being prepared for your death and letting others know exactly how you want that to happen. Well, not exactly being prepared for death, because who really is. This is about having the wherewithal to put your final wishes on paper and making sure someone knows what your exit plan is. You don’t want your family, or friends, saying things like “I don’t know, I think she wanted a Viking funeral.”
LOML and I have had an up-to-date last will and testament for many, many years. Our executor has changed, but the current one has a copy of all the good stuff and knows who our lawyer is. Years ago, LOML’s brother suggested once we had children, we should plan for our children’s care and for the actual distribution of our estate and of our personal effects. In the early days, our biggest concern became the question of who would take care of our kids should anything happen to us. We were, also, concerned about setting aside enough money for final expenses. In our first attempt at making our final preparations, neither one of us were very specific about the type of funeral we wanted, or how much was to be spent on those arrangements. We were young and believed someone would do right by us. It was a bit like how we made a choice for a fast food restaurant or a movie—we weren’t open about what we really wanted. And, truth be told, we were terrified we might end up on life support and someone would pull the plug on us, too soon. So we refused to offer any hint of what our family should do in that case. Times changed and so did our wills and our ditch the parents plan. We aren’t little kids anymore. The more time we spend here, the more real it becomes, this shuffling-off of the mortal coil. Like many of you, we’ve watched, helplessly, as friends and family have struggled with doing the right thing when their loved one(s) have died without specific instructions in place. We sure as heck didn’t want any of that happening to our kids.
We knew people who didn’t have up-to-date wills or a power of attorney for personal care. When it came to life support, there wasn’t any clear direction to the hapless family. When the doctors suggested “it was time,” they were all overcome with fear of doing the wrong thing. When it came time to arrange a funeral, it became more complicated than planning a subdivision. So many people with so many ideas of what the deceased might have wanted. Somewhere along the line the family/friends discovered the pre-arrangements weren’t adequate and they were left to fill in the gap.
Dying is part of life. If we’ve got the wherewithal to plan a birthday party or a spring holiday, surely we shouldn’t be afraid of planning a funeral and the distribution of our estate. And let’s face it, we’ve all got stuff and we’re gonna shove-off sooner or later. Everyone should have plan to deal with what to do with the remains of our life lived. I have a “How to Ditch the Bitch” plan. Once the ditching has happened, all that needs to be done is pour drinks, crank up the tunes, and have a good laugh.
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