Preparing for death, part 3

I was starting to think that maybe I should write something about conference or Easter, but this actually does correspond with Easter.

What I was alluding to last week, for the hard part of the planning, is that there is often a natural reluctance to think about bad things happening. Unfortunately, such thinking is necessary for planning to take place.

The harsh thing to do would be to just say "Get over it!" Parents with young children have died. Breadwinners have died. These things happen. I will try to be a little more gentle than that.

On any given day, the odds of you dying are low. It is very likely that you will be able to live long enough to see your children settled, or your parents settled, because sometimes we do support them. If you continue having pets, at some point you will outlive some, and other family may provide for them.

But you might not. And the other horrible thing to contemplate is that your survivors may not all be wise, caring, and selfless, but could possibly end up arguing over assets left behind, responsibilities not tended to, or even fairly trivial objects that have emotional significance for them.

That doesn't mean that they are bad people, so it is not necessarily predictable. Financial issues are stressful, and the loss of loved ones is stressful. That can cause temporary changes that leave big rifts. The death of one uncle for me meant that I didn't meet another uncle until about fifteen years after, and never met the other one.

(My family is not the best examples.)

So, because you love and care about the people and animals in your life, you need to think about your death.

Here is the good news; we have faith that death is not the end. Death means the end of your financial worries, and health worries. It means the chance to catch up with people you have missed. We do believe it still means work, but of a different kind - it could be a nice change of pace.

There might be pain of missing those you have left behind, even if it is temporary, and they can miss you, but that's why you look ahead, to reduce that pain. You make sure that when your troubles end, that the only trouble that is added to them is a grief that will be cured by the Resurrection.