Are you alive or afraid?

There are times in our lives when we encounter challenges we never anticipated. Recently, several of my friends have found themselves facing an unexpected crisis. They were coasting along pretty well, but a sudden turn of events like a fall, a surprising new symptom, or the personal crisis of an adult child caught them off guard. How did they face these challenges?

A few weeks ago I was in a conversation with my friend Sandy Conant Strachan, who has written posts for this blog, about how to navigate these stressful situations. She has faced her share of them, as have I. As always, I found her comments insightful and inspiring.  Sandy writes:

I was re-reading Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessings, yesterday in the hospital waiting for a doctor visit with my husband. She quotes a friend who said, “There are two kinds of people: those who are alive and those who are afraid.”  Thinking about that this morning, I realized we’re all both and we’re shape-changers, now welcoming life as it is, now trying desperately to control all or part of it and so afraid of losing.  But control is mostly an illusion.  The real sphere of control is a tiny part of our attitudes, perceptions, spirits —- ever so important, but sometimes very elusive.  Growing old and the specter of death is a constant challenge to balance being alive to where we are and being afraid of losing control.  

Can we be both alive and yet still manage our fear? Some prefer to ignore things they fear doing like arranging for end of life care or getting a will or an  Advance Directive. They assume if they ignore these things, they will be able to live more in the moment and feel more alive, instead of dreading death or decline.  They want to dance right up to the moment when they cannot, and then figure out what to do. Others feel more alive in the moment if they know they have future challenges figured out and communicated to family, about whether they want a burial or a cremation, how they want their assets to be shared, or what kind of care they might want should they be unconscious or on a respirator. Having discussed these issues with family should bring a sense of relief and comfort, right? Or does it just raise fears we never knew we had?

Because of conversations we had been having with friends and family, my husband and I recently decided to join the Neptune Society.  We had both decided to be cremated, but we realized we didn’t know who to call when that moment came, and we certainly did not want to deal with the typical mortuary. Our experience with our parents had taught us that the kind of “upselling” that is done is distasteful and distressing. We bought my dad’s casket at Costco, and he could not have been more thrilled that it “only” cost $900 instead of the ones at the mortuary that were priced in the thousands! With some trepidation, I called the number in my area for the Neptune Society.  I had thought of it as a group that owns a boat and takes your ashes to sea or something. The staff we spoke with were much more helpful and pleasant to deal with than that. No upselling or attempts to persuade us that we need a fancier urn or more services. Within hours, we had signed up online and on the phone without any hassle at all.  We decided to prepay, because for sure we will need this service some day and it will likely only cost more as time goes by! Now we have cards in our wallet and on our refrigerator, and when the day comes when we need their service, they will be available 24 hours a day. No more fear about what to do.

We were on a roll, so we decided we should look at our Advance Directive too. We have one on file where we live, but it was very simplistic. More about whether we want to be resuscitated than any of the other decisions that you need to think about. Our daughter helped us find the California Health Care Directive (I am attaching the one that Stanford University Medical Center uses because it is very clear and helpful.). We talked it through and each added our comments and instructions and took it to a Notary to make it legal. (You don’t need a Notary – you can just have two wtnesses sign it, one of wh0m should not be a relative.) Done. Filed where our family can find it. These documents can be changed as your life situation changes, but it felt really good to have done it before these decisions become a crisis.

Even if you are prepared for the unexpected, is control over these challenges something you can even hope to have? Isn’t it more likely life will deal us a deck we never imagined? There is no way we can plan for every contingency, and the very act of doing that planning can keep you stuck in a moment when you really wanted to feel alive!  But having done some of this “pre-planning” as they call it, we both feel a sense of relief. And our kids are also relieved that they know what we want and how to help us get it when the time comes.

So I ask you, our readers, where do you fall on the continuum of being afraid or being alive? Are you the dancer or the CPA? Any chance you might be a little of both? We would love to hear your ideas and comments!i