Final Wishes

“She would have wanted…” is the beginning of every family argument that could have been prevented.

Your family loves you and wants to honor your memory, but they don’t actually know what you want unless you tell them. They’re going to guess based on what they remember you saying, what they think you would have preferred, and what seems right to them.

The problem is that different family members will have different guesses, all of them sincere and well-intentioned.

Your sister remembers you saying you wanted to be cremated. Your brother remembers you saying burial was important. You probably said both things at different times, in different contexts, without thinking about the contradiction.

Your spouse thinks you’d want a celebration of life with music and stories. Your parents think you’d want a traditional religious service. Your best friend thinks you’d want everyone to get drunk and tell embarrassing stories about you.

They’re all trying to do right by you, but they’re working from incomplete information and their own assumptions about what you valued.

The solution is to be explicit about your preferences, even for things that seem obvious or unimportant to you.

“I don’t care; I’ll be dead” is a selfish statement.

Write down what you want. Include whatever details about tone, style, location, participants, and any specific elements that matter to you. Explain your reasoning if it will help your family understand your choices.

My own Ending Note includes a quirky wish: “Although I have long dreamed of becoming someone’s home decor as ashes in an urn, I will be dead, so what can I do if you don’t want that?” I mean I probably won’t haunt anyone if I don’t end up on someone’s mantle.

Now if you genuinely don’t care about certain details, say that too. “I don’t care if it’s burial or cremation, but I do want my service to be upbeat and celebratory” is useful information.

Your final wishes aren’t just about you. They’re about giving your family clear guidance so they can focus on grieving instead of guessing.