Tag Archives: Life & Death

ARE YOU PREPARED TO DIE?

Have you made preparations for your death?

During my time as a coroner, I experienced many cases where a death was sudden and totally unexpected. The deceased made no plans, gave no directions, and the family was left in utter devastation, grief, and turmoil, to sort out a mess.

Most estate plans address the basics like wills, insurance, and funeral arrangements, but they don’t think of two things that will bite your family, big time, if not planned for.

1. Your death must be supported by two legal documents.

These are your Registration of Death (ROD), commonly called the Death Certificate, and your Medical Certificate of Death (MCD) which families rarely see. Your ROD is the opposite of your Birth Certificate. Your MCD is a different thing. It states the cause of your death and can get quite complicated. That’s why authorities don’t want your family trying to interpret it. Your MCD can only be signed by your family doctor if your death classification is Natural, or by the coroner having jurisdiction where your death is not natural (Accident, Suicide, Homicide, or Undetermined) or… if you don’t have a family physician. No exceptions. When your cause of death can’t be immediately determined and awaits autopsy/toxicology results, a coroner can issue an interim certificate and release your body, however your estate legalities can’t be dealt with until the final MCD is done. This can be hastened by making sure you have a family physician.

2. Your body can only be released to your legal Next-Of-Kin.

If your NOK can’t be determined or located, your body has to lay in the morgue till this gets straightened out. All jurisdictions have an NOK designation list, starting with estate executor, spouse, oldest child, sibling, etc. Where this gets really messy is where spouses aren’t legally defined (common-law arrangements don’t apply, regardless of the length of time together) or the legal NOK is known, but can’t be found.

Do everyone a favour. Get a family doctor and make sure your NOK is clearly identified. Same goes for someone who you’re the primary NOK to. And here’s a really good primer / checklist on death preparation from the University of California that covers all else.

atyourservice.ucop.edu/forms_pubs/misc/prepinevit.pdf

So look after these loose ends today.

You don’t want to wait till you’re dead.

TOP 5 REGRETS OF THE DYING

What will you regret on your deathbed?

Justin Zorati posted this article on Donald Miller’s Storyline Blog. I want to share it with you, so you can share with others.

Bronnie Ware is an Australian palliative care nurse. As many of her patients approached their final days, Bronnie asked their regrets, or if they would have done things differently. She was so moved by the phenomenal clarity of vision at the end of life, that she documented their responses.

Here’s what she wrote:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

“This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.”

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

“Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

What’s your greatest regret so far?

What will you set out to achieve or change before you die?

Because one day you’re going to be on your deathbed.

PUT LIFE IN YOUR DEATH WRITING

The secret of good death writing is keeping the reader alive throughout.

To do that, you must first raise a question which begs to be answered by the end of the story.

In Thrillers, it’s something like ‘WTF’s gonna happen to the protagonist?’

In Murder-Mysteries, it’s ‘Who dunnit or Why’d they do it?’

In Sci-Fi… “Is this even possible?’

In Romance… ‘Is she gonna get laid?’

In Literary… ‘How elegant is the prose and what new Scrabble words can I pick up?’ (No wonder Literary is fading fast.)

I’m going to use an example from my novel, No Witnesses To Nothing.

And, No, I’m not trying to sell you Blog-subscribers the book. I’ll give you a free digital copy if you sign my mailing list, because that way you’ll sell it for me by WOM. (That used to be Word-Of-Mouth. Now it’s Word-Of-Mouse. I like that term!)

The central question in No Witnesses is ‘Why did the informants have to be murdered?’ Not who. It’s obvious from the opening that the ghost dunnit, because it’s a ghost story. It’s based on a real ghost story that actually happened to me when I was a police officer and it scared the living shit out of me. But then ghost stories are supposed to do that and it makes for a good hook.

So the question keeps getting raised. ‘Why did the informants HAVE to be murdered?’ And it’s answered at the end of the book, which you have to keep reading in order to find out.

So far, readers have been very positive; most turning around and reading it a second time. The best compliment that a fiction writer could ever have is ‘I couldn’t put it down!’ and I’ve got that from even those who don’t know me.

So that’s how to put life into a death story – raise the question of who or why they did it – which is what Murder Mysteries are about.

Do it repeatedly and delay the answer by throwing in red herrings with twists & turns. Like Agatha Christie did.

Blend this with some of the basics of story-telling; a good opening hook, realistic dialogue, limited use of adjective & adverbs, carefully placed descriptors, interesting characters, the suspension of disbelief, and that old thing of show & tell.

**Remember… You tell a story, not show it… and that’s for a whole other blog.**

What do you think brings a story to life?

I’m dying to hear your words.

Dying Words

Provoking Thoughts on Life, Death, and Writing