Four years ago this week, was the last week of my mother’s life. As her life wound down, one of the most difficult things for us, her daughters, was to get her to tell us her wishes and to get her to understand the importance of a living will (should she become incapacitated and no longer be able to make decisions). She did not believe she would die or become unconscious in anyway even though the cancer had spread to many of her vital organs and made its way up her spine and so was reluctant/fearful to make her thoughts known as to whether or not she would want to be kept alive with tubes and machines should her body fail her.

She needed to understand that the decision was hers alone and if she did not put it in writing, then it would fall to us, her daughters to make it. We did not want to make it. It was her body, her decision.

Finally, she did sign the living will, which said she would not want to be kept alive by any means necessary and so three days before her death we were able to use hospice care. She died in my sister’s house with all of us around her, peacefully. No doctors. No lawyers. No politicians.

Just us on a brilliantly sunny Sunday morning, one week before Easter.

It was her choice.

It is your choice, too, my friends–how you die. And so, I am offering you this link: Advance Directive Forms which provides you with all of the information you need should you be interested in having your own living will.