Preparing for loss...facing the future

In last week's Desert Sun News, there was an article from Maryeleanor, who recently lost her husband of 49 years, that really hit home. She described all the things they had done together as a couple to prepare for the inevitable, such as writing their wills and planning what kind of church service they'd want. 

Then she goes on to say that in the first three months after his death, she had 87 major issues to take care of without him, over 60 of which involved multiple complications. All the extra stress of these issues compounded her grief and completely overwhelmed her.

The number 87 seems like a lot, right? Nearly every single day of those first three months, she had to deal with something really important, that not only might her husband normally have handled, but the resources and information required to handle it were not at her disposal. Maybe it was a password that was only in his head, or bills that were in his name alone, or discovering there were no instructions anywhere for how to set the automatic lawn sprinklers. Surviving loss is hard enough emotionally without a logistical nightmare on top of it...when was Maryeleanor allowed the down-time she needed to adjust and grieve?

The article really expressed what is so valuable about Terry's workbook, Caring is Not Enough. There is just SO much more to think about then just funeral arrangements when someone you love is nearing the end of their life. Even if you're all young and healthy, you still have to be realistic about planning for a possible emergency too. Just caring about each other during a health crisis is not enough.

You all need to spend some time reviewing lots of details and thinking about all the "what if 's" and writing it all down somewhere. But once you can get past the discomfort of having such a conversation, then how in the world do you come up with possibly 87 different "what if 's?"

Terry's workbook has over 150 questions for families to consider and discuss during "the conversation." That's 150+ possible "what if 's" from legal to financial to household issues and more.

Sit down together and write as many answers as you can in the workbook. For questions you can't answer, you now have a handy list of issues to look into further. Tell the person who you want to take charge of things in your absence where the workbook is stored.

With this workbook, all the resources and information someone needs to get through those first few months are in one simple place. I know it's easy to keep thinking "oh there's time, I'll deal with all that later." But later might be too late. I don't want to make anyone in my family go through what Maryeleanor went through...do you?