No one likes to think about life after they’re gone. It is difficult and even painful to contemplate your own death. However, no amount of procrastination will prevent it. As such, it is better to be proactive. End-of-life planning helps by giving people a voice as they discuss their last wishes with their loved ones. It can take away some of the fears of the unknown and give people control over their legacy.
Advantages to End-of-Life Planning
End-of-life planning has many benefits and advantages.
- Control Over Important Life and Death Decisions. One of the main benefits of end-of-life planning is that it gives you control over making important life and death decisions, including:
- Choosing a type of funeral
- Deciding organ and tissue donations
- Specifying funeral service details, such as music arrangements or readings
- Creating a power of attorney
- Determining wishes for end-of-life care
- You Decide Where Your Assets Go. End-of-life planning can also involve developing legal documents to protect your assets and your loved ones when you are gone. Without some of these documents, your estate and assets will need to go through lengthy probate.
- Peace of Mind for Family Members. End-of-life planning is also important because it helps you talk to your family about your final wishes. This can take some of the burdens off them during their time of grief. Family members are often very grateful not to have to make critical decisions after their loved one has passed.
Funeral planners are a great resource for end-of-life planning. Funeral planners can help people through the end-of-life planning process by providing information about funeral laws and processes in their state, sharing packages for services, walking them through all types of funerals, helping with prearrangements and finding organ donation information.
