‘Designing your death?’ you may be thinking. ‘Is she really writing a blog on how to die as a lonely, old woman?’ Don’t worry, I’m not. I’m simply telling you how you can plan for your death so you won’t fear dying alone.
Contrary to popular belief:
- You don’t need to get married and have kids to avoid dying alone.
- Getting married and having kids won’t prevent you from dying alone anyway.
I touched on this in the last blog, but the jist of it is this: Spouses die. Children bail. As I’ve said before, you’re not so unloveable that only a ring on your finger and a bun in the oven will save you from dying alone. You have, or can have, friends and family who love you and will stay by your side when the reaper comes calling.
{This post contains links to death-positive resources. Please read my affiliate disclosure here.}
But What if You Are Alone?
What if, when your time comes, you’ve outlived all of your close family and friends? If the vision of lying abandoned in a sterile room, gasping out your last is clouding your vision, relax. Let me take you through a recent discovery of mine that may change the way you feel about dying ‘alone.’
Personally, the thought of being surrounded by my loved ones as I leave this world isn’t actually a comforting one for me. I know it sounds strange, because dying alone is such a deep-rooted fear in most people. And while I wouldn’t want to necessarily die alone, dying before an audience is—for me—the worse of those two extremes.
I don’t want to spend my last moments nervous and uncomfortable, trying to comfort other people. So what’s the solution for someone who doesn’t have anyone left, or who simply wants to be cared for (instead of doing the caring) on her death bed?
Designing Your Death with a Doula
As I was preparing this blog series, a new upload to the Ask A Mortician YouTube channel showed me a third option.
I’d heard the term “death doula” in Doughty’s book Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
I know many people will look at the idea of hiring someone to show you kindness in your final hours as a pitiable situation, but I don’t. Caregiving is a valuable service. I’ve advised people to consider the possibility of hiring a caregiver rather than raising a child in the hope that it will one day care for you in your old age. I also love clear expectations and interpersonal contracts. So the idea of hiring a death doula to take care of me in a way that will make me comfortable (rather than the way that will make my family feel comfortable) looks excellent.
Now, at the moment, my death plan doesn’t include anything like this. I’m still in my early 30s and, thankfully, in good health. So if I’m to die soon it’ll likely be due to an accident. When I get older, or if I find out I’m dying due to illness, I’ll hire a death doula.
How to Go About Designing Your Death
In the last post, I talked about making your advance directive and formal arrangements for your funeral. You can include all of the plans you make for your end-of-life care in your advance directive. But before you write that all in, you’ve got to decide what you want.
This blog is simply about designing your death. Think about what you want it to look like. Is your family surrounding you? Are your pets there? Are you at home, in a hospice center, or somewhere else? Remember that you might not be able to express yourself when the time comes, so it’s really important to plan ahead and write everything down.
Take a few minutes (or a few days) to imagine what you want your final hours to be like. When you know what you want, tell the person who can make those arrangements (your power of attorney or healthcare proxy, usually).
Selfish, Even in Death
“We should only think of ourselves in this life, of our own death.” – The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
As a single person without children, I’ve been called selfish many times for many reasons. And someone will probably say that it’s selfish of me to make all of these decisions myself instead of letting my family handle my death as they want. And maybe choosing to die the way I want is actually selfish. Maybe excluding my family from my deathbed is an unkindness to them. But, because I wouldn’t begrude anyone I love the opportunity to die as they like, I won’t withhold that from myself. Death is the one thing that has been guaranteed to me in life, and I believe it’s a deeply personal event. To me it seems more personal than getting married, having a baby, or even being born.
The way I see it, designing your death the way you want to is your right. More than that, it’s liberating. It takes a little bit of background anxiety out of your life.
What do you think? Is this just morbid, or is it an act of self-determination? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
If you’re still a little uneasy about the idea of dying alone, stay tuned for the final installment of A Spinster’s Guide to Death, coming out on October 31st.
