When The Pavement Ends Or How to Die “Right”

A group of weekend bikers enter an area of road construction near Bridger Montana on State Highway 120. Copyright by WyoJones. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Sometimes we choose to go off road and sometimes life takes off the pavement and bounces us around. Then it dumps us in a gully. We can try to get back on the familiar, the paved road, but Life Happens. The gully is now our new “road.” It’s called Big Life Changes. Or, if we’re honest with ourselves, getting old.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and this image brought it to fore of the old brain. To my surprise, it stayed there. A lot of ideas make it to the fore and then vanish in brain ether (does the brain have ether?)

Why the darkish thoughts? Not because I’m morbid, though I did trend that way for a while both during, and after, the flu. And January. Blink. Blink. No, mostly my thoughts have been trending that direction because my peers are starting leave, not just the road, but this life. It’s fairly sober-making.

And me and Godzilla, we’re turning sixty this year.

That’s a pretty big number. I don’t know if Godzilla is in awe, but I am. Big numbers usually avoid me. They know my math skills and tremble.

My kids think I should have a party. I’m just hoping it’s not a wake.

And I’m wondering how ready the hubs and I are to shuffle off this mortal coil without hosing our children so bad they talk about it on social media. For years. And years. And possibly into the next life.

I went looking on Google for information about how to die “right.” I’m the kind of person who figures there must be a book or workbook for that. Or an app. Surely there’s an app. There’s an app for everything, isn’t there?

So far I haven’t found what I’m looking for. Most of the books seems to be about estate planning, or I’m using the wrong search terms.

So I’m wondering, what does dying “right” involve? What are the best practices for arranging your affairs? I know some of the basics, but I’d like to collect the information into a central, well, workbook. Is there a workbook out there? An app for that? A box? A way to know what to put where? How can I be sure I’ve answered the right questions, when I’m not sure I know the answers our kids will need-to-know when we’re not around.

(Right now the hubs and I can’t agree on where we should be put post-mortem. I definitely don’t want of those group crypts. I’m a hermit in this life, can’t imagine I’d be different in the next, and I sure don’t want to have to fight my way through a crowd come resurrection morning! But I don’t want to be an urn that gets passed around by the kids either…)

So yeah, we’re in a new and unfamiliar gully. Not trying to get back on the pavement so much as get a GPS location so we can prepare for what’s ahead. If that’s possible.

So, my still living peers, what are the questions we should be answering? What do our heirs need to know beyond “who’s in the will?” Is there a book, workbook or app for that? This really is need-to-know, so hoping for lots of comments and suggestions. And a workbook. (grin) Down the road, if I find out the “right” stuff, I’ll share it in a blog post. If I’m not at that wake. (O.O)

And your comments will be entered into my monthly drawing for an AnaBanana gift basket ($25 value). I announce a winner the first blog post of the new month. Hey, wait! That’s THIS blog post. AND there’s an extra basket on the line because of my 501 Blog Party. So just look down there, yeah, just above my sign-off for the winners.

And the winners are ———>>> Cornelia Amiri, and Barrie wins for the blog party!

Congratulations! I’ll put you both in touch with AnaBanana so you can get your baskets!

Perilously yours,

Pauline

P.S. I did some cover updates, trying to improve the branding for my Project Enterprise books. If you haven’t tried any of the series, you can get the first part of The Key for free.