I'm Going To Live Until I Die
What I know is that when my mother died last year, she had all of her final wishes written out. The most important info was her government insurance number. She worked for the U.S. Army. It was magic. The lovely people at the funeral home and cemetery took down that number and smiled and said not to worry everything would be taken care of. And it was.
My brother and I were understandably in shock as we stumbled through the funeral planning process. Having her information smoothed the road for us. All we had to do was follow Mom's instructions because all of the major decisions were made, we only had to make a couple choices. It was a huge relief.
She thought of every detail, down to what she wanted to wear and where to find it. Including where her lipstick was in her purse. She had written her obituary, too, with a space for a photo. I decided right then and there that I would do the same thing. It made so much sense.
The portfolio I'm working on is really detailed, 12 pages to fill in. They left no stone unturned, nothing to chance. It's going to be a while before I'm done with it. It's kinda depressing, but kinda liberating, too. In addition to all of the boring details of bank accounts and such, I get to think about my friends and family and what I want to say to them and what I want them to know about me.
One thing that they haven't thought about yet is what to do with my Facebook page. I've been seeing news accounts of people hacking and bullying on the Facebook pages of deceased people. WTF! I've checked it out and FB has a Memorialization Request that can be submitted so I made a copy of that to add to the portfolio. It turns your FB page into a memorial for you. Who knew?
I hope to be around for years to come. I'm going to live life until I die. I figure this portfolio will be updated time and again. But just in case, our kids won't have to guess what I would have them do.
My cousin Agnes had done really good pre-planning and we were horrified at the time but she said she didn't want her family to have a hard time when she died. God bless her, that was such a loving thing to do, now I understand. Thanks for reminding me to get my ducks in a row.
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