Day 1

It is only fitting to start this year at the End.

Today I talked to a dead man.

I’ll call him Ronald. He was up on the 3^rd floor on the hospital in the Hospice wing. 75 years old, oxygen tube to his nose and a really wet, rolling cough. The kind that when I was 10, we’d hawk up and see how far we could spit it. Ronald wasn’t doing that today. He asked the nurse if he was going to die soon. She thought for a moment and said “Not today. I’ll let you know when you’re close.”

She was serious.

He was serious too.

I looked at them both, then got back to my job.

I work for Funeral Homes in South Dakota. I’m not a Funeral Director, in fact I avoid the back rooms of the funeral home and never ask the Directors what is new (they are far too prone to tell me).

Instead, I work in what is called the Pre-Need department. That means I help people plan their funerals far in advance. That fact that I am talking to Ronald today is an accident. The guys at the funeral home were busy (two other deaths) and they needed someone to take this guy’s seven hundred bucks before his girlfriend took it.

I have the trust papers in one hand, and a record guide in the other. The first set of papers makes sure that his seven hundred bucks only gets spent on his funeral. The other set of papers is the reason I’m telling you this:

Plan your End.

I really don’t think ol’ Ronald planned step out into the world and waste his life, his health, his money and his two marriages, on booze, cigarettes and gambling. But he did. The sparse facts I gather that will become part of his file show that he will probably die alone, and for the most part it’s his own damn fault.

The only person who might be at his funeral is his girlfriend, who breezed into the conference one hour late and who between his drowning coughs is asking:

1- How much he has in his checking account,

2- Where his Food Stamps are,

3- Where the title to his pick-up truck is,

4- And if he wants her to have the seven hundred bucks.

I sense a theme.

The only others gathered are the professionals. The nurse, the social worker, and me. Together we will, with the detached care and concern that professionals have, help this poor guy die. Then we will take our collective briefcases, portfolios and medical equipment over to the next guy, then the next, then the next.

Until we get to you.

At some time- some absolutely certain day and time- someone will write down the facts about your life. And the only person who has any real control over what will be written is you.

So today on Day 1, forget about what you’re going to watch on TV, forget about the upcoming weekend, forget about the vacation, the retirement, the marriage, the divorce, the whatever-it-is you’re looking forward to.

Look forward to your death. While you still have some options.

This little bit of wisdom is not mine. I learned it from Ronald.