No one likes thinking about their own mortality, but pre-planning our affairs in the event of incapacity and death can remove a lot of stress from our family at a very difficult time. Try as we might, we can’t avoid death. People hope to die in bed after a full life, peace made, affairs in order and surrounded by our loved ones. But, as various motorway pile-ups, rail crashes, airline disasters and terminal illnesses cruelly demonstrate, death can be premature, brutal, swift and completely unexpected. Take the situation early one morning in London 2013, two men working at completely different jobs but in the same location. One was 5 minutes late for work and lived because of this but the other 5 minutes early, died when a helicopter crashed on top of him.
By writing and keeping up to date our Wills and Powers of Attorney we spare our loved ones a skip load of trauma, grief and uncertainty.
Planning for one’s own passing is nothing new; the Vikings prepared longboats which were set alight and floated out to sea. Sailors and pirates were said to have worn gold earrings so that when they died there was sufficient value in gold to pay for a dignified funeral. And the Egyptians spent most of their time here on earth preparing for the next life by building pyramids and tombs.
We hope you will agree with us, far from being morbid, pre-arranging your affairs in the event of your death or incapacity is a very sensible thing to do.