The Ultimate in Adulting

“Talking about sex doesn’t make you pregnant. Talking about death doesn’t make you die.”

(A quote that I heard on a recent Glennon Doyle “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast)

I met with a lawyer last week and we talked about death.

In other words, I finally got around to seeing someone official about setting up a trust, so that in the unfortunate occurrence of my sudden untimely death, my affairs would be handled in a way that would not burden my loved ones.

Since my good lawyer is thorough, he didn’t just set up a trust for me and leave it at that. He also took care of other stuff that will be helpful when it’s time to deal with end of life issues: creating a will, drawing up power of attorney documents (if a time comes when I can’t make decisions for myself) and developing a healthcare directive, a cheery form that lays out what kind of care you want when your days on this planet are clearly coming to an end.

(Nothing too crazy for me as far as that goes: Pain relief? Yes, please! Respirators and feeding tubes and all that? Not so much. Interestingly, he said that’s what most people choose.)

I am relieved that those documents will be finished soon.

It’s sobering, though.

I realized that my friends and loved ones and I haven’t talked much about any of this.

(Because clearly we are all going to live forever.)

The lawyer asked, “What would you like to have done with your body? Cremation? Burial? Where would you like to end up? A cemetery? Which one? Would you like to have a service? What kind?”

Good questions, all.

I didn’t have any quick answers. In fact, I didn’t have answers at all.

So I’m thinking about it. Wondering. Did a little research about “Green Burial;” California just passed a law allowing human composting.

Would I want to be composted?

That seems a little gentler than cremation. And regular burial, with all that chemical embalming? That doesn’t seem so great. Plus it is very expensive.

It wouldn’t be so bad to end up composted if I could nourish a dogwood tree or redwood tree. Maybe someone could hang a bird feeder or two close by. Set up a bird bath. Put out eggs for the foxes (I ran into a man at the market the other day who said he did this every night. It was his way of helping them through this tough season with hardly any fruit.) The egg shells would nourish the plants, also the seed shells left by the birds, and then there would also be me down there. I would be helping the trees, too.

As far as a service? I’d rather have my loved ones take the money that they would have spent on a funeral and all that pomp and go somewhere beautiful. A cruise maybe? Or camping? Possibly Fort Bragg, where we spent so many happy days together. Somewhere where my spirit could drop by and say hey hello and whisper to them in a million different ways that I loved them always would love them always still loved them.

Always.

Because our bodies have to eventually die, but all the love that we hold?

It remains.

And this love is strong enough to reach the living from wherever it is that the dead go; of this I am certain. I’ve felt that love myself, in dreams and in the smallest of ordinary miracles. I know that my loved ones who have moved along love me still.  Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Funny that this blog will run just before Dia De Los Muertos, that holiday which honors and celebrates the dead.

I didn’t plan that, but it seems fitting.

If you’d want to share some of your end of life plans, I’d love to hear them. Maybe talking about all this stuff will make it seem a little less scary.