Engage With Grace: End of Life Decisions

Today marks the launching of a "blog rally" spurred on by Engage With Grace, an organization designed to encourage discussion and decision regarding end of life issues. As stated on their website (http://www.engagewithgrace.org/) , "we make choices throughout our lives – where we want to live, what types of activities will fill our days, with whom we spend our time. These choices are often a balance between our desires and our means, but at the end of the day, they are decisions made with intent. Somehow when we get close to death, however, we stop making decisions. We get frozen in our tracks and can't talk about our preferences for end of life care. According to studies, 75% of Americans would prefer to die at home, but anywhere between 20-50% of Americans die in hospital settings." Many surveyed confirm that the important, detailed discussions regarding end of life care have not taken place with loved ones. Engage with Grace has designed the "One Slide Project" with the simple goal of getting the conversation about end of life experience started. They hope that this one slide, with just five questions designed to help get us talking with each other and with our loved ones about our preferences, will be widely disseminated in order to educate people to communicate their preferences so that we can all end our lives in the same purposeful way we live them.


I commend Engage With Grace for their efforts in this area. As an estate planner, I regularly have this discussion with clients and encourage all to execute a Health Care Proxy setting out preferences for end of life care and treatment. I also encourage clients to have a detailed and frank discussion with the appointed holder of the Proxy, and other loved ones, about the choices expressed in the document so that fully informed decisions regarding care may be made by loved ones at the appropriate moment, based on a clear understanding of the wishes of the principal. Regardless of your particular wishes or philosophies regarding end of life care, a clear and well considered expression of intent is a gift to your loved ones and a most empowering way to influence the end of your life in the same way you have lived it. So here is the "one slide"- I encourage everyone to consider these issues, have the discussion with loved ones, and most of all, confirm them in a legal document that will be binding when the time arrives.