Personal Narrative: After-Death Care
How old were you when your loved one passed?
28, my husband was 29.
Did you know what they wanted in terms of after-death care? / How did the subject of your deaths come up?
Yes. We had recently found out we were pregnant and were watching the movie Everest; there’s a scene in there where the wife is trying to convince her husband not to go on the climb up Mount Everest because she’s pregnant and she doesn’t want to be left all alone in the very likely event that he will die. Somewhat ironically, this interaction set us up for the conversation on after-death care. I had no idea that less than five months later I would be carrying out my husband’s wishes.
Did you feel prepared to move forward?
No, not at all. Knowing what to do only made it …show more content…
My husband was an organ donor, but the extreme insensitivity and timing by the One Legacy people nearly destroyed me. I almost went against my husband’s wishes here just because I was tired of dealing with the Organ Donation vultures. As an example, I had literally just found out my husband wasn’t going to make it, and the guy was in there asking asking me to sign paperwork to harvest his organs. Not knowing, or caring to ask whether or not we would immediately be removing him from life support (we weren’t). The employees are used to seeing death all the time and have become desensitized to the death around them. If possible, assign someone the position of “leader / foreman” and they get to be the battering ram in your line of defenses.
Is there something up you would want other people to know?
Don’t wait to talk about it. With marriage planning, should come death planning. I know that’s the last thing you want to think of when you’re getting married. When you say “until death do us part” you think you’re going to get a lot more than nine months, and you may get more, and you may get less, but you need to talk about it so that it doesn’t completely blindside you when it
28, my husband was 29.
Did you know what they wanted in terms of after-death care? / How did the subject of your deaths come up?
Yes. We had recently found out we were pregnant and were watching the movie Everest; there’s a scene in there where the wife is trying to convince her husband not to go on the climb up Mount Everest because she’s pregnant and she doesn’t want to be left all alone in the very likely event that he will die. Somewhat ironically, this interaction set us up for the conversation on after-death care. I had no idea that less than five months later I would be carrying out my husband’s wishes.
Did you feel prepared to move forward?
No, not at all. Knowing what to do only made it …show more content…
My husband was an organ donor, but the extreme insensitivity and timing by the One Legacy people nearly destroyed me. I almost went against my husband’s wishes here just because I was tired of dealing with the Organ Donation vultures. As an example, I had literally just found out my husband wasn’t going to make it, and the guy was in there asking asking me to sign paperwork to harvest his organs. Not knowing, or caring to ask whether or not we would immediately be removing him from life support (we weren’t). The employees are used to seeing death all the time and have become desensitized to the death around them. If possible, assign someone the position of “leader / foreman” and they get to be the battering ram in your line of defenses.
Is there something up you would want other people to know?
Don’t wait to talk about it. With marriage planning, should come death planning. I know that’s the last thing you want to think of when you’re getting married. When you say “until death do us part” you think you’re going to get a lot more than nine months, and you may get more, and you may get less, but you need to talk about it so that it doesn’t completely blindside you when it