Women usually handle family deaths. Here's how to make it easier for everyone.
I was gifted years to love my uncle, a WWII POW, and to be with him as he died just short of his 104th BD. The way he planned his death was a gift to me. Mary Braun Bates, MD tells us how to do that.
Our uncle, the last of our parents’ generation, planned everything about his death a decade before it happened. He paid for the mortuary and cemetery years in advance and left detailed medical and burial instructions everywhere for those of us left behind. I’ve been in healthcare all this lifetime and maybe others, but I learned so much from what he did and how he did it. As he lay dying, I knew exactly what he wanted and how to make absolutely sure his wishes were carried out—even to making sure the ashes of his beloved cat were re-cremated with him. I came to understand what a gift that was for me—not just him—during the dazed hours and avalanche of decisions after he died.
Mary Braun Bates, MD, an internal medicine physician who publishes on Substack as Doctoring Unpacked, covers the most important medical decisions we should communicate with our kids and loved ones about our death—whether we hope it will be 40 years in the future or are staring it in the face right now. Click “Read more” below for her outstanding post on what DNR and POA actually mean, and more—as well as why our doctors, too, might be a Doctor of Perpetual Lateness.
