Plan While You Still Can: 16 End-of-Life Checklists You Need Now
Plan While You Still Can- 16 End of Life Checklist You Need Now is a clear-cut, easy to follow resource guide for caregivers, professionals, and families navigating the maze of end of life issues.  The topics and checklists covered help readers to develop an awareness of their own mortality as well as to enable them to help the frail members of their family or community to meet death with grace and clarity.  This inspiring book gives unparalleled insight into the intricate challenges of estate planning, long-term care and end of life issues.  Facing the approaching end-of-life needs of his own parents and his in-laws, Burrows slogged through the process without the benefit of any guidebooks or resources. As he went through the process not once, not twice, but five times he wished for checklists for smoothing the process.  As he went through the hoops over and over, Burrows knew there had to be a better way to face this time and tackle each related problem and issue. Once he made up his mind to write this book he refined his processes and began to create more checklists to help him and others deal with the herculean task of planning in smaller, more manageable chunks.  Soon he had a straightforward, well developed plan for each stage of end-of-life decision making. He began to share it with others close to him who were helping their own family members. Coping with the impending loss of a loved one is one of the most difficult challenges a family faces. One of the greatest lessons put forth so poignantly in Plan  While You Still Can is to create dialogue before the situation has reached crisis level.  Decide what is important at the end of your life and put it in writing so that it clearly communicates your wishes with your family or a designated care giver. As America s baby boomers continue to age and transition into this final phase in their lives, they and their families will have to learn to respond and adapt to the changes. Plan While You Still Can is an excellent resource to start that dialogue and help give perspective to those involved in managing the process. --Shannon EvansMany people of faith, while devoted and devotional in their daily lives, are still reliant upon their spiritual leaders for helping them through the nitty-gritty details that accompany a loved one's death (or the preparation for one's own), as well as the grief process itself.  It is a part of our calling, as clergy, to assist people with these details, but it can also be quite time-consuming and even redundant. Don has provided us professional care-givers with this book, a means of helping many people prepare in advance for addressing those myriad details. And, while it will be a helpful addition to the library of any house of worship, even those who do not consider themselves particularly religious will find it a useful guide for preparing for end-of-life issues.   Having recently commended my own father to God's eternal care, I can personally testify to the author's insights and organizational skills.  Thank you for ministering to me, even though you didn't know that you were doing so. I look forward to being able to recommend this book to many others for years to come. --Pastor David PolandI suspect that for those who have firsthand experience with the ultimate transition of a parent, the book will be a jarring reminder of the opportunities lost, the errors made and the deeds undone that often come with the crystal clear vision of hindsight . . . particularly when that vision is enhanced by the lens this splendid work provides. In my case the view was somewhat blurred by some long suppressed tears. Plan While You Still Can is a celebration of life, or more importantly, living. Birth and death are the bookends; this is about treasuring and valuing the story in between.  It offers a way of preparing for the inevitable event that still somehow takes us by surprise. Even when a loved one's diagnosis is terminal, we are somehow surprised by the sense of panic, or whirling emotions, or flood of familial flotsam that so often accompanies an experience that, none-the-less, unifies us all. --JonScott Williams