I bumped into one of my dog walking companions earlier this week – I have been a little lazy in recent months and so have missed catching up with familiar faces in the park.
This particular cold morning, I was head down, headphones in and listening to a lot of songs I am ‘trying’ to learn for choirs and charity commitments…I didn’t want to stop for anyone because it was cold and I was ‘busy’.
But the dogs started playing happily so we got chatting, falling back into conversation as dog walking companions do! And then she mentioned, almost in passing, that her husband had had a massive stroke 2 weeks ago and died at work.
And as she talked about him and how life had changed so completely in the last two weeks, I was reminded, very starkly, that we never know what might happen…
She talked about all the practical things she had been meaning to do but hadn’t got round to – like learning how to use online banking and manage household bills. She talked about not knowing any of his passwords so she couldn’t access his insurance policies or emails. She talked about the added complications because they hadn’t made wills…
She said she was sharing these things with everyone she spoke to because she didn’t want others to find themselves in a situation like this in future, just because death is one of those subjects we rarely talk about…even though it is the only one of life’s certainties!
It may be one of the most difficult conversations to have with your loved ones AND not having those conversations puts so much burden on those left behind. I don’t want to do that with my loved ones so I will be making sure some of those practicalities are dealt with now.
And this is why I share this with you – her wish was to empower others by sharing her learnings…and so I share them with you.