Planning the Perfect Ending: Continuing Your Responsibility up to the End of Your Life

By Martin Goldsworthy

Achieving a perfect end to our life is something we should think about, and before it is too late. For many people perfection might mean dying peacefully, when they are ready, perhaps in their own home, having said farewell to favourite people and places. These days many people do not get close to achieving this ideal.
Advances in medical science have enabled us to prolongue lives, but not necessarily with the quality of life the affected people had imagined. At the time of writing there was discussion in several jurisdictions about assisted dying, but this specific issue is only a part of the overall picture. Dementia is at least as significant, but scarcely discussed in this context, at least not openly. Dementia still cannot be treated or halted, and it seems likely to aflict many of us.
This book presents some reasons for thinking about our own, inevitable death, and some of the factors to be considered when you do. Thinking about this is not trivial and the book was initially developed as a guide for the author’s own deliberations. The book’s objective is to help interested readers make their own end-of-life plan, to ensure that whatever happens, their death is as near to their ideal as can be arranged.
To frame in the book the discussion of practical solutions, two extreme late-life conditions are envisaged. These are brain bad – body good, which represents the situation of someone with advanced dementia, and brain good – body bad, for people who are severely physically handicapped. For each of these extreme conditions criteria are suggested for taking appropriate actions. Where you will end up between these extremes will only become clear as time passes. In general, an end-of-life plan should consider both of these extreme conditions, and also accidents.
At the end of the book the current version of the author’s own end-of-life plan is included as an example. In the second appendix the entry fields are left blank, for readers who want to develop their own plans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Goldsworthy
• Release date: Sep 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311149565

Martin Goldsworthy

Martin Goldsworthy lives with his Peruvian partner in Lima. He comes from a large family and has two daughters of his own, both of whom live in Europe.He completed his university studies in Cambridge and in London, and has lived and worked in the UK, Malaysia, Germany and Perú. Currently he works part-time as a consultant.

Book preview

Planning the Perfect Ending – Continuing Your Responsibility up to the End of Your Life

By Martin Goldsworthy

Copyright 2016 Martin Goldsworthy

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Preface - 2nd Edition

1 Introduction

2 Why think about it?

3 Still who? Still what?

4 Available solutions

5 Defining your solutions

6 Legal aspects

7 Discussing your wishes

8 Carrying out your wishes

9 References

About the author

Appendix - My end of life plan

Preface - 2nd Edition

This was originally written for me and for my family. Early in 2015 one of my weekly blog posts (1) had the title Still who? It concerned what I call end-of-life options. Shortly afterwards I had the opportunity to discuss the post with my daughters; face to face. The fact that they live in Europe and I live with my partner in Perú can make things more complicated, but it also makes it even more important to define my wishes clearly for all concerned. My partner, who is Peruvian, had insisted even earlier that I should write some things down. What she had in mind was avoiding any differences with my daughters about what to do with the body after my death. For me, of course, that is the simplest part.

The end of my life was not something that my daughters, or my partner, would have chosen to think about. Finally, I agreed with my daughters that it was up to me to define things, to make my plan for the end of my life. They said that with that in hand we could then have a