How are you planning to mark this Saturday, April 16th, which is National Healthcare Decisions Day? Maybe grab your best friends or your closest loved ones and have a really good heart-to-heart about what matters and what you fear the most? Good communication and heartfelt conversation are the foundation for advance care planning, and this Saturday is a good time to initiate a conversation about what your wishes might be in case you are diagnosed with a serious illness or lose the ability to make healthcare decisions for yourself. The hope is that with a specially designated day, you’ll be inspired and empowered to take the steps necessary to ensure you and your loved ones share your wishes regarding future health care and end-of-life decision-making. For more on this designated day (and resources to support your conversations), read here, and for more on The Conversation Project, the organization that hosts this event and provides essential resources for discussing and documenting your wishes for care, click here. And take a look here at 10 easy things you can do in recognition of National Healthcare Decisions Day.

Earlier this year, we posted a piece about whether the drive to get people to fill out advance directive documents has been a failure: has it advanced the goal of having more people think about late-in-life and end-of-life care, and make their wishes known to their loved ones (and thus make sure that their wishes are followed)? While there’s no doubt that filling out documents and making health care agent appointments help with legal concerns when individuals are seriously ill, what may have gotten lost in the process is the recognition that the end of life and death are much more than decision points in the healthcare system. That death is an integral part of life itself, of our status as human beings, and of our relationships with others, and designating it as just a medical event removes it from the essence of life and causes us to lose a crucial source of connection to others. In fact, there is a new report published in The Lancet, entitled “Report of the Lancet Commission on the Value of Death: bringing death back into life,” which calls for a “radical reimagining” of a better system for death and dying, including recognizing that “dying should be understood as a relational and spiritual process rather than simply a physiological event” and that “conversations and stories about everyday death, dying and grief need to become common.” 

Good stories and conversations can bring death back into life, and can help prepare more of us to consider and share our desires when it comes to the end of life, both in terms of the medical care we might or might not want, as well as connection to whom and what we love and value. A few recent articles in the popular press are examples of this “everyday” talk about death as a part of life. For example, a recent article in the San Diego Tribune by Dr. Margaret Elizondo (Opinion: Discussing end-of-life care can be uncomfortable, but it’s crucial. From a doctor, here’s why), about her 97-year-old mother’s life in the community and her wishes not to go to a hospital anymore, is a good reminder of the value of sharing your wishes so that others around you respect what you want for yourself. As Dr. Elizondo so compassionately states, “I don’t know what is lurking in her body or when she will take a turn for the worse again. But I do know she can be spared the complications involved with hospitalization at her age. Thanks, mom, for letting me know your wishes, and raising me to have the strength to carry them out.”

Writer Steven Petrow’s humorous book Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old: A Highly Judgmental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting of All the Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong was profiled in agebuzz last summer. He recently shared his own story about talking about death and dying. Commenting on his own fears of death (given his health history), along with the stories of his mother’s passing and the death of a close friend, Petrow wrote that if you don’t acknowledge your own fear of dying, especially when you face serious illness, then you don’t open the door for others to discuss it with you. His plea? Be courageous, be present and find the courage to embrace what’s so often unspeakable. So, for this coming National Healthcare Decisions Day, rather than filling out forms or documenting choices, perhaps instead embrace your fears, embrace your loved ones, and open up to begin a heartfelt conversation about what’s really important and meaningful as we all face the inevitable.