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What if we have only weeks to live?

Here's a sober thought; any of us may have mere weeks to live. This virus is taking lives - including those of healthy people our own age and younger. So who's to say ours won't be among them?

This is not a doom and gloom idea, it's a realistic possibility for all of us (thankfully excepting our children, as far as I'm aware there have still not been any deaths of under-10's) and we need to think about it.

I totally understand the temptation to stick your head in the sand, get busy focusing on keeping the kids busy or not gaining 20kg in this captivity or sorting out all the neglected jobs in the house. Distraction. Watch TV, surf the internet, don't think. Busyness driven by fear, which may well be underneath our consciousness - but it's there, gnawing at the edges.

Fear tries to keep us from looking death in the face, but I've always been a bit of a detached realist. And more importantly, I choose to consciously remind myself that I have no reason to fear death! So this post is about why we mustn't fear death, and how we may want to live in the light of the real possibility of it being only weeks away.

Why we mustn't fear death

The end of life is naturally frightening. But, I am a Christian. This doesn't mean I think I'm better than anyone else, but it does mean that when my life ends I will stand justified before a just and holy God. Not because I've earned any brownie points but because Jesus took my sins upon him when he died - my debt has been paid in his death sentence, and debts don't need paying twice.

Yet in the natural, I have so many fears and worries: and it's a mental discipline to remind myself of what the actual truth is. It's a bit like when I got vaccinated last year - I didn't like the sting in the natural, but my mind had to choose above that because of the greater truth that it would protect me. So in the same way, my natural mind is worried about many things - suffering, what about my children and husband - but the higher truth is that they are in God's hands and are safe there. With or without me. Do I trust God to look after them, or do I think I need to be around to supervise God is doing it well enough? Hardly!

Practical considerations

So, if my or my husband's death is only weeks away, what do we practically want to have in place?

  • A will - we did make one a while ago but we didn't put it in a safe place, it's still in the house. At the least, both of us need to know where to find it.
  • A living will - if I didn't have kids, I would be refusing a ventilator because really the only reason I don't want to die is because of my family. If I didn't have them, I'd be quite happy to go. Think about it - do you really want to hold on hard? If yes, fight. But if not, let others know (and write down your wishes, letting others know where to find the document)
  • Plans for the kids - where do you want them to go? It's perhaps unlikely that we both die, but if we did, what then? Agree together, and write it down.

So how do we spend our days?

This perspective may change your focus. Perhaps because I lost my mother so young, I've never taken my time with my kids for granted... but especially now, every day matters. I love them as hard as I can, I enjoy them as deeply as I can, I pray for them as hard as I can.

I hope I don't die, I truly do. But it is a possibility and it's my responsibility as a mother to think about it.



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