planning for a good death
“Mortality is not a condition that medicine should seek to cure.”
“Since we only die once, shouldn’t we make the best of it? ”
(Paraphrase from Dr. Philip Nitschke, early and present leader in the right-to-die movement.)
Linus: “We only live once, Snoopy.”
Snoopy: “Wrong. We live every day. We only die once.”
WHY PLAN?
- We now take a long time to die. Only a few generations ago people died quickly, usually from pneumonia or some other malady that doctors then didn’t know how to treat, but do now. Thanks to medical advances in the past fifty years, we take weeks, months, even years, to die.
- Most professionals in our medical system feel a duty to keep us alive every way possible, for as long as possible.
- We need to think now, die later, to make it as easy as possible for those who will care for us in our last days; otherwise our caregivers will be left with the messy and difficult results of our short-sightedness.
- We need to find out if anyone in our family doesn’t agree with our decisions about how we wish to end our lives.
WHAT PLANNING ISN’T
Before learning how to do the necessary end-of-life planning, it is important to understand what planning isn’t.
It is NOT:
- Preparing an advance directive as incidental to doing an estate plan with your lawyer.
- Completing an advance directive in your doctor’s office or signing one upon entering a hospital for surgery.
- Copying someone else’s form because you are in a hurry.
WHAT PLANNING IS
Planning takes forethought:
The key is knowledge. Knowledge is power and creates choices.
So planning takes days, weeks, even months. Here are the steps:
Step 1. GATHER INFORMATION
Start the process by reading some of the materials mentioned in this and the Resources section. This step should take you hours or even days. Enjoyable but easy background reading might be one of these books, Being Mortal, or That Good Night. Another might be the classic in the right-to-die movement, Final Exit; it is more technical and educational, but is still an easy read.
If you choose, read this entire website first, then look at the resources that interest you. If you’re stuck, the Go Wish Cards are a good way to start; order the cards or find the online version.
As you gather information, give some thought as to what your last wishes might be. That is, what might you want to tell your family and put into your advance directive.
Step 2. HAVE CONVERSATIONS
Who do you talk to?
- Certainly your mate and your children if you have them.
- Other relatives, such as sisters and brothers.
- Close friends. Don’t feel you need to limit your discussions to family members.
- Your best input might come from a long conversation with your best friend.
What to talk about? Anything related to the end of one’s life. What interested you when you were thinking and researching?
If you can’t get started, or want to broaden your horizon, here are some specific resources.
- Go Wish Cards, mentioned before. Each card can be source of a conversation.
- Why did you put the card in this pile and not that one?
- The Conversation Project
- The Caring Conversations Workbook
WHY have these conversations? Because they help:
- Clarify your thinking.
- Make your family and others feel like they are involved.
- You find your proxy.
- Enable you to out who might be opposed to your wishes and
- to try to change their minds.
- Finalize your thoughts.
Step 3. PAUSE AND RETHINK
Rethink what you have learned from your reading and conversations. Rethinking your wishes might never end. But at some point you need to stop and write your advance directive (or if you already have one, to rewrite it); writing it is covered in the next section.
GETTING OTHERS TO THINK, TALK AND WRITE THEIR ADVANCE DIRECTIVE.
Do you know others who need to do this end-of-life planning—parents, aunts and uncles, friends, parents of friends?
If so, then you need to start a conversation with them. That could be awkward. How do you get started? Here are some aids:
- Refer to someone they know who didn’t have a good death
- Keep your eye out in the news about someone they know who died.
- Start talking about the process you went through to do your thinking, taking and writing.
- Get ideas from the organizations listed under conversations above.
- Dig out the Go Wish cards mentioned above and discuss why the person chose this pile or that one.
Don’t wait to do this. These people will thank you when they are finished.