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All,
Sorry for being MIA. My mother-in-law went in to the hospital a week ago Friday for what should have been a routine operation (serious, but routine), and, instead, she passed away on Wednesday following complications.
I wanted to take this opportunity, while it's fresh in my mind, to stress two things...
First - everyone should prepare a Living Will detailing exactly the types of conditions under which you would want to survive or be revived, and under which you would want to not be revived or live. And make sure everyone knows where it's located. In my mother-in-law's case, she had a Living Will that, had we (or the hospital) read earlier, would have saved much anguish for all concerned. As it was, once we read it, it made it clear that she would not want to have lived in the condition she was in (we had to turn off the life support). It has saved her survivors from suffering from a tremendous amount of guilt.
Second - even if you don't put together a will, at least put together a list of which of your possessions you would like to give to your survivors. It won't be legally binding, but if your survivors are reasonable people, it will help. We don't know if she had a list like this (if it does exist, we haven't found it yet) and we expect that my wife and her sister will be able to amicably divide everything, but we already know that there are some family heirlooms that they would both like to have to remember her.
Dave |
