A conversation with your coach can help you prepare for life’s closing chapter.
“Baby boomers have changed the face of the U.S. population for more than 70 years and continue to do so as more enter their senior years, a demographic shift often referred to as a “gray tsunami.” (census.gov)
Data and research point to a “tsunami of humans nearing end of life” within the next two decades. In a world where our health care workers are increasingly burned out and leaving their jobs, the strain that this tsunami will put on health care resources is tremendous. Retirement communities and long-term care facilities already have waiting lists. The rising costs of healthcare are stripping what many retirees have tucked away for their “golden years.” As numbers of the “gray tsunami” rise, the quality of life as they near death decreases and gets more and more expensive.
Seventy-five percent of all money spent on health care occurs in the last three months of life while the quality of life is the worst we ever seen. Ninety-five percent of people say they prefer to die at home while 75% of people end up dying in hospitals or nursing homes.
When people talk about what is happening in our end-of-life culture today, we hear things like, “I don’t want to die that way. I want control of how I die. I want a loving and natural death. I’ll choose my own way out before I die like that.”
It is more important than ever to plan for life’s final chapter. Waiting too long means that we’ll be making critical decisions and choices when we’re more stressed, under pressure to decide in a moment of crisis. Or our ability to weigh the pros and cons and consider how our life-long values inform our choices has declined as we’ve aged.
Too often we leave our loved ones scrambling to make life and death decisions on our behalf. Siblings who once got along and enjoyed each other’s company find themselves not only at odds with each other, but often finding themselves in unreconcilable disagreements and broken relationships.
It is never too early to think about what we want our final months and days to be.
What are your spiritual wishes? What do you want your children to know? Do you want to be kept alive by all means possible? Or do you want to die in the comfort of your own home surrounded by the people and things most important to you? What do you imagine your funeral or life celebration to be like? Do you have a favorite song, or poem, or story you want shared?
Reach out to CoachRev Lee for guidance as you begin thinking about your Five Wishes, and having a conversation with your family about what you want as your life draws to a close.
- Wish 1: The Person I Want to Make Care Decisions for Me When I Can’t. …
- Wish 2: The Kind of Medical Treatment I Want or Don’t Want. …
- Wish 3: How Comfortable I Want to Be. …
- Wish 4: How I Want People to Treat Me. …
- Wish 5: What I Want My Loved Ones to Know.
Email Lee @ Lee@CoachRev.com to find out when the next free workshop is scheduled.
And in the meantime – Live Today Like It Matters!!
