Here I am almost 8 months since my wife’s heart attack that ended her life, and I am still dealing with these end-of-life issues. One of the many things you have to do when you lose a spouse is to change who your healthcare power-of-attorney is. That is what I am going through right now, and I think this, and signing my new will, will finish all this up, or at least I hope so. I never dreamed that it would take this long. But, that is a story for another post. This one is about whom you select at your healthcare-POA and what you want them to know.
Since I have no children, I ended up choosing my niece for this task. We sat down recently and had a long discussion about those last few days of life. My wife was terribly afraid of death, and that just prolonged the suffering that she and I had to endure. I made it clear that I don’t want to repeat her process. I said, “just pull the plug” and she humorously strongly agreed. With that, I knew I picked the right person.
To me, the quality of life is infinitely more important than the quantity. I simply don’t want to stretch out my life locked to a nursing home bed for months or even weeks. Just pull the plug.
I don’t fear death. I have lived a pretty good life, so I’m ready. My father died two years older than I am now. Strangely, his father and grandfather did the same. 🥴 So, for several years now I have become settled that I will likely follow their paths. I kinda think of the time I have left as “borrowed”. That doesn’t scare me except for the fact that I don’t want to waste any of what I have left. If I should live beyond that date, I will continue to live toward my new life’s purpose as I will post about next week.
Anyway, next week I will finally sign all the legal documents, and then it is just on to making the best use of the time that the Lord gives me.
I like the saying that everyone want’s to get to heaven but no one wants to die to get there.
As usual I have a different view of that.
RJ's Corner 
That must have been a relief to have your niece agree. My husband and I have named each other to make these decisions, and we each have written advance directives. We’ve also been clear about our wishes in conversations with our daughters. I hope the advance directives relieve them of the feeling that they’re making the decision for us and questioning whether they made the right one. It’s a calmer feeling, don’t you think, allowing you to go forward freely knowing that you’ve done all you can to both avoid an end-of-life experience that’s prolonged and also take away as much of the burden as you can on those who will be consulted.
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Of course my wife was my healthcare POA, but since we didn’t have any children I had to look further to find someone I trusted. The side effect of this is that I have come to know my niece much better than I had before.
Having daughters to take over that task when one of you dies is a nice thing. It is one less headache the surviving spouse has to face, and believe me there are many.
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