A little over a month ago, I joined a writing course with the intent of writing and self-publishing my first book. I am a few weeks into this journey now, and while feeling wet behind the ears, I’m slowly navigating my way through and loving every minute. The book article is first published here, and I’d love your feedback.
It was August 7th of 2020. I lost both of my parents to COVID. Yes, not one, but both… on the same day. Just 12 hours apart, they left us in a world, and in a way, that seemed unreal, unlike anything we had known before. I had just a few short days to wrap my head around their illness and passing. It was heart-wrenching to be absent from them as they lay dying, and say my final farewells through video chat. An instant orphan at age 49, I realized that I am the matriarch, the next in line to go.
We don’t choose how or when we die. Death choses us when it’s our turn. Within a five year period of time, my dear sister lost two husbands. One of my brother-in-laws was tragically killed at age 59 in a rear-end collision, while sitting at a construction stop. My sister who sat next to him was spared. A few years before, her first husband lost his battle with cancer at age 54. Walking through each of these experiences forced me to closely examine death and the way we think about death in our culture.
I’m a midwife in my 9-5 job… and through the night as well. I’ve brought many babies into this world. It’s always beautiful to watch the transition of maiden to mother, young man to father, and couple to family1. Two people instantly grow up and become parents as a new life makes a debut. The process is beautiful, but it’s the transitions that intrigue me the most. Watching a woman come into her strength, bringing forth her baby from her body, is one of the most powerful things to witness in the universe. And watching a new partner weep at the strength of his woman and the birth of his son or daughter is the purest and most sincere of all emotions. These two souls are transformed forever, and a new soul has made its presence on the earth. The world will never be the same.
In the olden days, the midwives were the ones who were responsible for, not only birthing the babies, but also for laying out the dead. Coming into the world, and going out, were both sacred passages that required modesty, care and sensitivity.
Being in the medical profession does give one a unique perspective on life and death. One could say it’s more calloused, but is it? Maybe it’s just more realistic. I watch families prepare for birth with wonder and excitement. They commission a photographer, plan a gathering, and hire a support team. It’s an event to be remembered. My experiences with death, on the other hand, have left me feeling like something essential was missing. I wonder if death could not, in fact, be as spiritual, and as ushering, as birth. That moment of breath holding, pause and silence when a life enters and exits this world is a Divine pass-through that those of us who are living hold in our hearts forever.
Through my experiences, I’ve observed the fears surrounding death and how it affects the process in a negative way. A general avoidance of talking about death with loved ones only results in missed opportunity and words left unsaid. It leaves those behind without a sense of closure and an unsettling lack of peace.
I’ve witnessed the internal conflict of a person confronting their own end of life, but unable to truly face it, because religion required that they must hold faith for survival. I’ve seen the focus of eternal reward and the afterlife distract from taking care of the practical things that bring comfort after one is gone. It’s as if accepting and talking about our passing is viewed as the opposite of remaining strong. Why can’t faith and strength also hold space for real discussion and adequate preparation for something that is inevitable?
I’ve witnessed how manipulation of the elderly can leave a family without anything, not even a photo to inherit. I’ve seen how greed can literally rip apart families after loved ones are gone, leaving them with no family at all. All of this can happen because someone did not adequately prepare for what was, after all, inevitable.
While still in shock and in an extreme state of exhaustion and grief, my family and I struggled to create services for our loved ones that we hoped would truly honor them. We agonized over their obituaries and wondered if we had all the details correct. Was what we said about them a worthy-enough accolade to sum up the whole life of a person? We laboriously gathered photos (most of which needed to be scanned into electronic format), picked out music, and selected a gravesite. We located a venue for the service, picked out clothes for our loved ones to wear in their unopened caskets before trying to find appropriate clothes and shoes for ourselves. We sorted through phones, computers and paperwork looking for passwords and documentation, or the lack thereof. We fumbled with social media accounts, wondered how to pay bills, and sorted through literal barn loads of life possessions. It was a nightmarish load of work, and we anguished to put it all together without having a clue what we were doing.
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I’d like to say that after you bury your loved one, it’s over and you can work your way toward healing and emerging back into normal life, but NOPE, It doesn’t end there. There are a myriad more things to do after a loved one passes. Closing accounts, making title changes and dealing with the IRS can go on for years. Not to mention, identity theft, which can strike at any time as long as there are open accounts. We learned the hard way what not to do. Fighting with banks and account vendors is exhausting, and leaves the living wishing that they were dead as well.
On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve seen the fear of death prevent people from truly living. You’ve heard the line, “Live like you were dying”? Well, NEWS FLASH… we all are!
What I do believe is that it can be better! If we start to think about the end of life in a different way, we have the possibility of making it so much easier for our loved ones. Think about it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a list of accounts with login information, so you could get things taken care of quickly and avoid having identity theft, lost money or the electricity shut off? Wouldn’t it give our loved ones additional peace and comfort knowing that we took care of everything and were at peace with our own inevitable passage?
There are also a myriad of benefits for us. I believe that facing our apprehensions about death and squaring everything away can catapult us into facing other fears in our lives, enabling us to do the things that we’ve said for years that we want to do. Additionally, I believe it could make our lives better, even more productive, as we evaluate our life values and direction. I believe that it holds the power to change our trajectory from the humdrum, monotonous hamster wheel of life to living our remaining time purposefully, without fear and without regret. You can ensure that your life will have a lasting impact on your family, community, and the world after you’re gone. It will give your children and friends great memories of you, ones they can brag about. Family history and stories will not be lost. Your living legacy will continue dancing long after you’ve danced your last dance.
This book is workbook-style, and will guide you step by step through making your end of life plans and creating a legacy. It includes online resources and three actionable paths for each step. You are guided to start simple with step one, covering the basics. Then build upon that with the recommended end of life planning guide. If you want to take it even further, you can complete the legacy building steps. While I am not an attorney or an estate planner, where my expertise ends, I will point you in the right direction for additional resources. Most people start and end with legal documents, like writing a will and living trust. This plan is much more than that and includes the following easy-guided steps:
Gather & store your documents and make them accessible to next of kin, trustee and/or executor of your will. Starting here gives you a place to store everything.
Make a list of accounts with login & password information (templates are provided for you to fill in your information)
Prepare your legal documents: last will and testament, living will, medical power of attorney, financial power of attorney, pet trust, revocable living trust
Write your obituary
Set your funeral planning declaration
Plan for easy transfer on accounts & titles
Plan your celebration of life service
Assemble photos & select songs
Write your memoirs
Write letters to your loved ones for the future
Once you have completed the steps, you are ready to get out there and fully start living your best life and the final chapter brings this to light and sets you off on the right foot. You only have one life to live, so make it a great one!
Does this feel like a book you would read? What else would you want included?
1 While the traditional format of a family is man, woman and child, I acknowledge and support all types of family units including single moms, surrogate mothers, adoptive families, and lesbian and trans couples.
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Kim Verbarg is an author, blog-writer, mother and grandmother, midwife, and health enthusiast. She lives in St Pete Beach, Florida, where she enjoys the beach life, as well as traveling, hiking and camping. Her fulfilling career as a midwife and birth center director has provided the opportunity to personally deliver over a thousand babies into the world and touch the lives of many families. Kim is the founder of Sweet Child O’ Mine Birth Center located in the Tampa Bay area. She is also the founder of Tampa Bay Polar Plunge and holds interest in the health benefits of cold water plunging and other natural health modalities.
Contact Kim at kimverbarg@gmail.com