Waiting until the time is right
When is the right time to think and talk about aging, illness, dying and caregiving? For many people it seems like the answer is “Not now. Sometime later”. But most people we have spoken to say that they wish that they had more conversations, talked about more real stuff, and done more planning earlier.
It feels like there is lots of social pressure to wait until we are very old or sick to try to talk to each other, or to grapple with our feelings and beliefs about death.
Many of us seem to imagine having one big conversation where we make one big plan - or talk about all the stuff we need to say at once - and then never again! What if we said more of the things that feels important to us, and talking aloud about the tricky decisions we might have to make, right now - when we are well and our kids are young? Perhaps we could talk about things more often, more regularly, in little ways when are in our 20s, 30s, and 40s - as well as later!
People told us that it can be difficult to try and have big conversations for the first time when there is some urgent reason why the conversation has to happen right NOW. In this situation talking is made much harder because the stakes are really high. We have to get this right and do it quickly (and we are tired, overwhelmed, and in the middle of the anxiety of a new diagnosis or health scare).
What if no time ever feels ‘right’? Too often real sadness and suffering seems to come from: not getting to say (or hear) ‘I love you’ ,’thank you’ or ‘I’m sorry’; not asking important questions; or having to bear the burden of having to make hard decisions without really knowing what our loved ones would want. If we have spend many years waiting for the one perfect moment that never comes, or pushing all thoughts of aging or death away and being determined to ‘fight’ it- it can be frightening and overwhelming to suddenly have to face hard realities.
What do you think are the risks of talking to much or too early about the things that matter to you? What are the risk of waiting too long?
What do you want to say or ask your loved ones? What’s stopping you for starting that conversation now?
One of the biggest gifts you can leave the people you love when we die is to have sorted out all of your clutter. Go through the cupboards. Throw out all the junk. Remove the secret box of old love letters (unless you are happy for your kids to read them )! And if there are things that are especially meaningful or important to you - share those things with the people who matter to you now. Don’t leave them in the bottom of a draw, never used, getting moldy.
The same goes for emotional clutter. It is so much better to have cleared that out too before you die. Say what matters. Get rid of as much of the old emotional baggage as much as you can. Don’t leave all that emotional dirt under the carpet for the next generation to have to clear up. Don’t wait to share your apologies, joys and gratitude.
You can’t do all this cleaning in one go or when you are exhausted. It’s too much. That’s why a regular spring clean and tidy up is a good idea - of your possessions and of your relationships.
Based on the work of Margareta Magnusson and B.J. Miller