{"id":1723,"date":"2024-03-08T14:53:35","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T15:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=1723"},"modified":"2024-03-12T21:05:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T21:05:09","slug":"how-to-make-end-of-life-planning-less-stressful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=1723","title":{"rendered":"How to Make End-of-Life Planning Less Stressful"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One tip: Do it over chocolate cake.<\/p>\n

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I recently hosted a strange family gathering: an end-of-life lunch.<\/p>\n

It was my sister Dinah\u2019s idea. She had been saying for months that it was time to discuss my parents\u2019 final wishes while they were both still able to weigh in.<\/p>\n

But I kept putting off the conversation. Who wants to think about it, whether it\u2019s your own or the death of someone you care about?<\/p>\n

Research shows that fewer than one third of U.S. residents<\/a> have advanced-care directives, or detailed medical instructions in the event they can\u2019t communicate their own wishes. Without such instructions, loved ones are left to use guesswork, which can be confusing and chaotic.<\/p>\n

So I pushed past my reluctance and invited the family over to talk about everything from their positions on resuscitation and funeral plans to who will take their cats. I even tried to make things festive by ordering pizza and baking a chocolate cake.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I learned things about my family that I never knew: My mom and dad don\u2019t want a memorial service. (\u201cWe don\u2019t like big gatherings, whether we\u2019re alive or dead,\u201d my mom explained.) My sister Heather, meanwhile, wants hers to be held at Starbucks. (A Starbucks rep said that while this was \u201cdefinitely a unique inquiry that we don\u2019t get across our desks often,\u201d they declined to comment further.)<\/p>\n

Our lunch was occasionally weird \u2014 my dad once read that your \u201ccremains\u201d can be pressed into a working vinyl record, and he briefly floated the idea \u2014 but the gathering wasn\u2019t as sad or awkward as I imagined it would be. Instead, it was a relief to chat openly about my folks\u2019 end-of-life wishes instead of repeatedly stashing them away.<\/p>\n

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One tip: Do it over chocolate cake.I recently hosted a strange family gathering: an end-of-life lunch.It was my sister Dinah\u2019s idea. She had been saying for months that it was time to discuss my parents\u2019 final wishes while they were both still able to weigh in.But I kept putting off the conversation. Who wants to think about it, whether it\u2019s your own or the death of someone you care about?Research shows that fewer than one third of U.S. residents have advanced-care directives, or detailed medical instructions in the event they can\u2019t communicate their own wishes. Without such instructions, loved ones are left to use guesswork, which can be confusing and chaotic.So I pushed past my reluctance and invited the family over to talk about everything from their positions on resuscitation and funeral plans to who will take their cats. I even tried to make things festive by ordering pizza and baking a chocolate cake.I learned things about my family that I never knew: My mom and dad don\u2019t want a memorial service. (\u201cWe don\u2019t like big gatherings, whether we\u2019re alive or dead,\u201d my mom explained.) My sister Heather, meanwhile, wants hers to be held at Starbucks. (A Starbucks rep said that while this was \u201cdefinitely a unique inquiry that we don\u2019t get across our desks often,\u201d they declined to comment further.)Our lunch was occasionally weird \u2014 my dad once read that your \u201ccremains\u201d can be pressed into a working vinyl record, and he briefly floated the idea \u2014 but the gathering wasn\u2019t as sad or awkward as I imagined it would be. Instead, it was a relief to chat openly about my folks\u2019 end-of-life wishes instead of repeatedly stashing them away.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1725,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1723"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1726,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions\/1726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}