You broach the subject and next is SILENCE. Then we often hear a question such as “why are you asking me - are you sick? Or "what didn’t you tell me?”
Human nature tends to be more willing to talk about death – and the plans for it – when someone one knows is very ill or has died.
How do you start this discussion? How do you get someone you care about to see the importance of making their deep wishes known while they can. How do you get them to agree that their own date of death is completely undetermined?
One way is to open the discussion by asking for you both (all) to share a story about someone close to you who died. It doesn’t matter if your first thought is of a grandparent who died 20 years ago or of a child who was hit by a car in the street. I brought up the topic yesterday and was told that the person I was addressing had been the next door neighbor of a woman who had been murdered recently in Austin. My friend admitted that she was glad to know that it was a “crime of passion” and not a random attack as she admitted that she had been worried for her own safety.
Death takes many forms – from infant death, to illness, to suicide, to disease, to murder, to an accident, to a long lingering decline of the body. But no one can tell you your DATE of DEATH. No one came into this world with an expiration date on their forehead.
Prepare…yes prepare!
