April 15 – Prepare

There are some things you can try all you want to prepare for, but you’ll never be ready for them. Birth and death are two.

Our society really encourages women to prepare for giving birth. Not only with the baby registries and showers, but with childbirth preparation classes, coaching, books, and the childbirth plan. When I had my babies, I had a plan. I took some classes. I read a bunch of books. I talked incessantly about what I wanted. And I didn’t just do it the first time around. I kept trying to get it right. Releasing a baby into the world is a hard thing, anytime.

Death is like this too. Once you reach a certain age you will be asked regularly if you have an advance directive. “What do you want us to do if your heart stops?” you might be asked by an insensitive healthcare professional. They need this for your files.

We don’t exactly plan our deaths – it’s more often the case that we plan to live forever. But we know in our hearts that is not a good plan, so we make a few efforts. We buy life insurance for our loved ones. Later, we buy a cemetery plot, pre-pay a funeral package. We prepare a will so our kids won’t fight over our stuff.

We talk about the kind of death we would like to have. But we have less say, in the end, than we would like to have.

It seems like however much we have prepared, we find at the end that we are still not ready to let go of something. Often, it looks like some responsibility we are unable to let go of. A woman who has always looked after her kids is not convinced that they will be okay without her. A man who has always been responsible for supporting his wife is still afraid at the end that he has not adequately provided for her.

In the biggest things in life, the question is, how do you prepare to let go?