Well this is an uplifting topic ! I have written two Advance Care Directives (ACD)in the last few years .[You can now do it quite easily on-line (Link to SA Legal Services Form is here (https://advancecaredirectives.sa.gov.au/https://advancecaredirectives.sa.gov.au/)…I guess if you live outside God’s Own Country (SA) you can Google your local links.]
So I’m blogging about this because it is one of those things we need to attend to as we get older.
What exactly is it?
We are simply sharing with those who are going to be affected ( our children and grandchildren, and our friends and associates) what we might like to happen as we prepare to die.
Now I am aware that when I revealed my first directive to my three daughters one Sunday afternoon a couple of years ago…I wanted them to sign their agreement to act as my agents, it was for me an invitation to say to them “I trust you”…and I realise that’s a risk, my experience has been that children do not always deal well with the deaths of their parents. Or indeed of their children, or their siblings.
But I do know and believe that though they/we may not want to do it.
That is NOT the point.
We MUST do it.
For our own well-being, for the well-being of our children and grandchildren.
The way to deal with death is to meet it in the garden (some of us will easily get this) and cry and say,
“They have taken him away and I don’t know where they have laid him.”
We said this about my own mother, they came and took her away while we were sitting around discussing what to do.
Ambulance men (sic for such they were) came and took my Dad and dealt carelessly with his body.
So, any way, getting back to that fateful Sunday when the three beloved were to simply sign their agreement to act. To care for me, and each other and all the others.
The first ACD, was fairly innocuous.
Let’s face it I was not planning to fall off the twig.
So I passed the copies around…..
Daughter number 2 ( The third S Clark) ….couldn’t do it…
“I don’t want to do this”, she said. Tears flooded. ( It’s one of her hallmark responses)
Not quite sure what she thought …I was certainly not about to die,
and she was certainly not going to stop me from dying by refusing to sign.
I am a bit unsure whether we managed to sign the documents that day. It doesn’t matter I have written another since then….have to get it signed.
It was instructive about how precious this stuff is with which we deal. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels”
It’s not up to me to ignore my children’s sensibilities and tell them to “Muscle up!” They are three very strong women…almost frightening. And I have observed about them in the past.
“They are exactly what I would want them to be. Assertive, intelligent and kind. I am just not so sure that I want them to assert all over me”
And of course they are my little girls, with hearts easily broken. Of this treasure I must be careful.
I hope this is a wisdom of age.
Was very struck by a discussion on RN Saturday Extra with the wonderful Geraldine Doogue (31/8/19) which talked about Palliative Care and ACDs and reminded us that we have come a long way in the forty years since I was ordained. It reminds us that ACDs are not just ‘tick boxes’ they are processes which need care
Hopefully when I present the next now to be signed ACD, we may all enter into this.
And, of course, I probably won’t be there when the rubber hits the road. I will just have to ‘trust them’.
And I do.
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