The Living Will

From what she’d encountered in her life, seeing how easily life is gone in a split-second, this, is what she’d come to understand, translated…

I am currently fifty-eight, very healthy, days are fulfilling, but slowly, I’d had the thoughts of needing to arrange for my final affairs already. I’d told my husband, that I’d wanted to set up my living will by age sixty-five, to get the paperwork for my final care, as well as donating my body to research, and afterwards, I’d wanted to get cremated and my ashes, tossed out to sea.

not my photo here…

Setting up this living will, is to reduce the possibilities of my loved ones arguing after I’m gone, signing the final care statements is to allow myself to walk away from this life with my dignity intact, to avoid those unnecessary, painful treatment procedures that will be hard on my family, as well as on myself too. Signing the donor papers for my body is for the sake of hoping that I can still give something to mankind at the end of my life; choosing to have my ashes tossed out to sea is to fulfill my life-long dream that I won’t get to: traveling around the world.

As my husband heard, he’d stated, “Setting up your living will at sixty-five is too early!”, I’d told him, “I’d just wanted to get prepared ahead of time is all.” he’d, fallen silent then.

A few weeks after my art classes, the very next day I’d learned that after the class, my instructor had a stroke, he’d fallen into a serious comatose, and even if they’d operated on him, he’d become, a vegetable, and, three days later, he’d passed away, at the age of sixty-four. Two weeks ago my good friend who lived in Taoyuan LINED me, that her husband died of the relapse from her liver cancer four months ago, at the age of sixty-one.

a formal document here…

As the night draws on, I listened to my husband snore next to me in silence, and, the scenes from my art class kept hitting my mind, he’d originally planned to have an art exhibition of his own pieces. And his date with his wife, to travel across Europe after he’d retired also, turned into a mirage as well. My good friend and her husband just six months back came to Hualien to spend some time with me, and how, can one of them be gone so soon? I too am worried, that when it’s my time, or my loved ones’ times, it might happen, so suddenly, life is never constant, and this made me contemplate on the meanings of, needing to set up that living will.

So, this, is why the living will would be the MOST important document of your elderly years, and, even IF you’re nowhere NEAR your elderly years, you should start thinking on it, because the friends and art instructor of this woman were gone, in a jiffy, without any time, to tell their families of their last wishes, and, because their loved ones are gone, the surviving family members can only guess at what they would’ve wanted done, but, if you’d set up that living will, then, there would be NO questions of sorts, and besides, a living will can keep your children from contesting how the assets were being spread out too, so, save yourselves the troubles later on, set up that living will today!