On Friday we had our second jab. The next day our will drafts arrived for final approval. The former prolonging life, the latter a clear-sighted reminder that lives don’t last for ever.
The previous wills were more than twenty years old; in the interim a grandchild had been born. You gotta adjust. Not least to the march of technology and to the pandemic.
The solicitor offered us preliminary communication by Zoom. I’m a Skype man but it had to be Zoom. VR’s hearing isn’t what it was and so I bought more powerful loudspeakers and a webcam to go with her laptop. Neither worked as they should and the solicitor improvised by combining his mobile with his computer. An agreeable youngish guy with one of those jaw-outline beards.
Resolving the laptop problem involved a re-set; the equivalent of removing a human brain and re-shaping it to fit. It worked and I’m as proud of that as anything during Covid-19.
Wills remind us that one will die before the other. And that this isn’t a time for euphemism. We’ll die, not “pass on” nor “be translated into glory”. And since death – for us – consists of a full stop (US: period) followed by an infinity of empty pages there’ll be no “loved one” smiling down approvingly. During these final months the trick seems to be to live in the present; to summarise or reconstruct the past but without emotion. Did we use the time well? More important: did we discover things?
VR and I argue agreeably about funeral music. I did favour the great trio from Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte; now I lean towards Janet Baker singing Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody except it’s 13 minutes long and might people fidget? But it’s the last one standing who gets to choose. Conflagration is cheaper.
I applaud you both for facing death out loud and not leaving the details to your children. That is a kindness. I'm also happy you were able to resolve the laptop problem. Victory is sweet.
ReplyDeleteColette: Wasn't expecting many - if any - comments to this post, bit too near the bone. So thanks for that. The point about wills is trying to imagine a future worst case and working towards avoiding that. People who die intestate may not realise that much of what they leave is likely to be swallowed in lawyers' fees. Ho-hum.
ReplyDeleteI leave all the zoom and online meetings to the man to organise. It gives him great purpose.
ReplyDeleteAs for death. It's all in the planning. We have talked it through with all involved, have wills and power of attorney ready, even the forms for the bank have been signed - there's only one offspring who probably will not cope when the time comes.
But nothing scheduled in terms of funeral music, we did specified the type of burial (cheapest, most ecological) but I fear this will be complicated should we die in bureaucratic Germany. Thankfully, there are ways and means involving completely legal border crossings to nearby Netherlands, returning with urns and able to spread incinerated Dutch ashes at will anywhere.
Sabine: It's the cool, reasoned, factual and mildly amused response I would have hoped for from Germany and I thank you for it. All the more remarkable given the physical suffering you've undergone since I started reading your blog (So slyly christened). Speaking for myself, I sought to be aloof from the subject because I imagined that would be the majority view; anything other might have been seen as "special pleading", a phrase I have now used twice in the space of a week. I hope I didn't sound assertive about music, any masterpiece would do, and there are plenty around. But shortish, crematorium seats are notoriously hard.
DeleteI think this is an informative post and it is very useful and knowledgeable. therefore, I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article. web based meetings
ReplyDelete