Tuesday, November 27, 2018

The Final Gift


My dear friend was murdered on October 27, 2018 during the attack on the synagogue in Pittsburgh.  People have written much more eloquently than I about the feelings and emotions of this horrific day. This blog is not about my feelings.  This is about decision and action with a topic I feel strongly about.

One of the comforting actions my friend’s wife did was to follow the instructions he left for his funeral and burial.  This family had THE CONVERSATION.  The wife knew which funeral home, which cemetery, and what kind of service her husband wanted.  Certainly he had no way of knowing that someone was going to kill him.  He left home that Saturday morning as he usually did.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  When his wife heard about the shooting, she called him and couldn’t raise him.  Then she knew even before law enforcement showed up at her home.

She also knew that way back they tackled the hard conversation and she knew what he wanted to happen when he died.  They both thought they had many years to live before the actions needed to be carried out.  The challenge is—we don’t know what will happen in the next minute.  THE CONVERSATION IS like an insurance policy- you hope you never need it but when you do, you are glad it’s there.  So have that conversation with your family.  Give your family the opportunity to give you the final gift of carrying out your wishes. 

Let me know your thoughts. Share your experience with others.  While this is not necessarily a cocktail party conversation, it really could give depth to such chit chat.  I find most people either stop me in my tracks and tell me they don’t want to talk about it or they open up with sad stories from their past. Yet getting them to commit to having THE CONVERSATION with their own loved ones is difficult.  The more we talk about it, I hope the easier it will be for people to take action.