Death and Taxes But Mostly Death

Disclaimer: I know, I know. Who needs disclaimers? But this is a topic on my heart today and when there's a topic on my heart after a week of trying to come up with a different topic for a blog post and not being able to, I have to go with what's on my heart. The following is the stuff I've been thinking about. I do not intend it to be morbid...I encourage you to read on thoughtfully and consider where you are in your own thoughts about death.           

I am not a fan of those times when my husband tells me that he will most likely die before me. Actually, “not a fan” isn’t even strong enough language for how I feel when he says that to me. Not that he says this a lot: but occasionally, we get on the topic of death and inevitably, this remark will show its ugly face.

            My husband and I are both in our thirties and relatively healthy. Neither of us plan on kicking the bucket anytime soon, but death is a reality (just like taxes, I’m told). To that end, we’ve each shared our wishes with one another. While we don’t have living wills set up (yet…it’s on our near-future-to-do-list), we both know what the other wants. We also have a good sense of our family’s health history. When I do premarital counseling, I ask couples if they’ve had that conversation.

            For example: my husband knows that Alzheimer’s runs on both sides of my family. A few weeks ago, I attended a one-day conference on Alzheimer’s. The conference was incredibly eye-opening and filled with good information. Like my mother who attended the conference with me, I was surprised by how relevant the lecture on financial and legal issues turned out to be. Death is reality, with or without the added emotional and physical strain of dementia. I don’t say that to be morbid: as the Buddhists would say in their observance of sunyata (emptiness), death is neither good nor bad, it just is what it is. We assign meaning to it. It’s how we as human beings look at a thing that makes it good or bad.

            I’ve done funerals that I would classify as hard (though I’m not sure there are really any that I would classify as “easy.”). I’ve also done funerals where the family makes sure to remind me that the first three letters of funeral are “F-U-N.” I believe death is only a part of our story, not the end. My faith in Jesus reminds me that there is more to this life than just this life, but we should still make the best of this life while we’re here. Most of us would say we don’t want to die with regrets. I also take comfort in the fact that Jesus wept. I take comfort in Paul’s words to the Thessalonians: “Do not grieve as those who have no hope” (I Thessalonians 4:13). When I die, I want people to grieve with hope. I hope I successfully communicate that to my loved ones.

            Communication is so important. Most of us don’t want to talk about our deaths and we certainly don’t want to cause our loved ones pain by talking about it. But we do need to talk about it. I’ve seen first-hand how beneficial that can be. In my first year of ministry, an elderly member of my first church asked to meet with me to discuss her funeral. I asked her if she had plans to die anytime soon and she told me she didn’t have a date in mind (she said it with a laugh…she had a fantastic sense of humor and she was an amazing lady of faith). We sat down in her kitchen and she told me the scripture passages she wanted and the hymns. The sermon was up to me, but she had specifics she wanted. When she died six years later, I honored each of her requests. Her family was relieved that she had so much planned out ahead of time. I kept the plans in a file in my office so I’d know exactly where they were. I have never forgotten the relief her family felt knowing that they were doing exactly what their mother wanted at her memorial service.

            In a recent issue of the magazine Reformed Worship, retired pastor Rev. Robert Koornneef offered the form he uses that people can fill out with their funeral plan. It’s a form that I want to make available in my ministry and offers some good points for conversation. The link to his form is here and I encourage you to at least look at it. One bullet point I might add to his form is the question of whether or not the person’s family has a copy of the plan. Do they know where to find the plan (because having a plan does no one any good if no one else knows how to find and access it)? And if the plan is in a digital format, does the family know how to gain access to passwords? That was an important point that I took away from the Alzheimer’s conference. I made a whole list of every account and login information that exists in my digital repertoire and put it in the safe where my husband can easily find it in case of emergency.

            It’s never too early to talk about death with your loved ones. It’s never too early to get on paper what you want. It’s definitely never too early to meet with your pastor and make sure he or she knows what you want.

            Maybe the first step is to think about what you want (and what you don’t want. For example, I will have it noted in my living will that I will haunt whoever decides to read Psalm 23 at my funeral). This topic has been coming up a lot for me this year, between conferences and the recent magazine of Reformed Worship I got where every article was related to aging, death, and dying. It’s made me think again of what I want and reminded me to get that in writing because like my church member, I don’t have an expiration date in mind. Perhaps this isn’t the topic you wanted to come up for you right now, but hopefully it encourages you, wherever you are in that thought process.

            Interact with me! In the comment section below, answer this: Have you thought about your end of life decisions? If not, why not? And how would you prefer your pastor to support you and encourage you in that thought process?