Minnesota Wills & Trusts | Openly Discussing Death Can Greatly Benefit Each Family Member

Before another close family member dies, set aside time to seriously discuss with each other all of your basic end-of-life concerns, values, and needs.

Your closest relatives (or friends who will be acting as your legal caregivers) need this information so that one day, they wont have to face unnecessary crises and sleepless nights wondering if your wishes are being fully honored.

Furthermore, once you have this discussion, it can truly lighten your concerns about death since youll know that youre making every attempt to approach it on your own terms.

How Should I Go About Discussing Death with Others?

The writer Ellen Goodman, who has long shared her remarkable talents with others through her articles published in the Boston Globe and elsewhere, recently wrote an article for The New York Times entitled, How to Talk About Dying. In it, she discusses her own past struggles with talking about death within her family and then indicates why her experiences motivated her to take part in creating The Conversation Starter Kit. Youll discover that this kit contains a comprehensive listing of many end-of-life topics all adults should discuss with their loved ones.

Although its naturally painful to accept the absolute certainty of our own future deaths, if youve mastered any aspect of the art of human love, you know it will be even harder to cope with losing your most treasured family members and friends.

However, you can greatly lessen all of this pain by pulling it out of the shadows with several open conversations. Reality is our friend, even though our culture constantly encourages us to run from it in countless ways.

What Exactly Will I Find If I Visit the Conversation Starter Kit Website?

For starters, youll not only be able to quietly embrace your own humanity youll also be able to turn the unspoken into a roadmap for action in the future. After all, dont we all hope deep down that all of our final requests and fears will be acknowledged and handled with tender kindness as we prepare to leave this world?

As you review the kits questions, it will become much easier to go ahead and schedule talks with your loved ones in the near future. It really can be comforting to tell your likely caregivers what you hope will take place as you transition out of this world in as peaceful and pleasant a manner as possible.

As the kit indicates, you may want to start this conversation process by writing to those you love or placing a simple phone call.

Just try to avoid procrastinating — no one every takes pleasure in learning a loved one has just passed away before s/he had the courage to discuss critical end-of-life topics.

The starter kit can help you answer general questions about arranging the time and place to have these discussions and it points out precise topics youll want to cover. You may want to discuss how youd like to interact with your doctor, how much detailed information youll want to know about your condition, and the types of questions youll want answered as your health begins to decline. You can also discuss the types of palliative care youre open to receiving. (This is often referred to as specialized medical care for people with serious illnesses.)

Besides Addressing Important Care Topics The Kit Lists Legal Paperwork You Need Now

• Every adult needs to obtain an Advanced Directive or Living Will without it, no one will fully understand what you consider to be quality of life as certain body processes begin to fail or shut down. This document lets you spell everything out. Fortunately, most attorneys have standardized forms that can make this task easier for you, although youre normally allowed to add material you consider necessary or critical.
• Youll need to legally designate your health care proxy or medical power of attorney. Different states refer to this decision maker with slightly unique terms. However, they all simply mean that youre naming a trusted adult to make difficult medical decisions for you once you become incapacitated. There are often gray area questions that will arise that wont be clearly addressed in your Advanced Directive. After all, its not unusual to have a highly unique disease process, even though we may all pass away of fairly similar causes.

Your Minnesota estate planning attorney is prepared to discuss these and other documents you may want to obtain long before you ever encounter an end-of-life or terminal illness. (You can also learn more by visiting the following Minnesota Department of Health Website page that addresses questions about advance directives.)

Minnesota Wills & Trusts : Conclusion

We each have everything to gain by spelling out our end-of-life desires to others. These discussions also offer us the chance to comfort one another by asking questions now that might become much harder to discuss once a serious illness is unfolding.

Consider helping all of your family members by downloading this useful, 12-page Conversation Starter Kit today regarding death and then open up a discussion during the next few months. You should also feel free to contact your Minnesota estate planning attorney once youre ready to obtain the documents that you and other family members may need.

Minnesota Wills & Trusts Lawyers

Free Initial Consultations

Contact the Flanders Law Firm today. The firm offers free estate planning consultations to all potential clients. Call(612) 424-0398.