Putting Affairs in Order Before Death
Experts explain the steps you should take to make sure your family knows your wishes on everything from funeral plans to end-of-life care.
Planning a Funeral continued...
The important thing is to start planning sooner rather than later, according to Dan Taylor, author of The Parent Care Conversation. In his book he offers detailed suggestions on how to talk about these issues with your parents and, if appropriate, with your children.
"I think that people do not talk with each other about this because they don't know how to begin the conversation," Taylor says.
Taylor wrote the book to help others avoid the problems he encountered after his father developed dementiadementia. Taylor realized that with a few simple conversations, he could have taken much better care of him.
"There needs to be a major dialogue between adult children and their agingaging parents about how best to prepare for and how best to be able to spend these extra years, in terms of quality of care and quality of life," Taylor says. "And the dialogue needs to occur now."
Don't begin the conversation by telling your parents what you want them to do, as though you know what's best, Taylor suggests.
"A better way to begin is by asking your parents what their view of the future is," he says. "Many [adult children] have no idea if parents are OK financially. They don't know where the assets are. Then something happens that forces them to take control, and by then the parent may not be able to tell them."