Rest Easy Journal

REST EASY JOURNAL – a practical way to help loved ones after you’ve gone.

CHAPTER ONE: Taking responsibility for your death in life...

Why is this process important?

Ask yourself this question right now. “If I were to die tomorrow (or have diminished mental or physical capacity), how easy will it be for my loved ones to know:

• what to do

• who to contact

• how to access all the documentation they’ll need to process

• what I want for my last days, weeks, months

• what I want for my funeral

• who I really was and what I stood for?”

If you can answer all the elements of this question fully and easily; have all the information in one place and there is at least one person close to you who knows where it is kept, then you don’t need to fill in this journal.

If, however, you are like most of the people alive on this planet today (over 40% of adult Australians, for example, haven’t even made a Will) and don’t have this information in an easy-to-access format (and you care about the legacy you leave after you’ve gone)—then take some time to go through this journal and fill in at least some, if not all of the details.

Since first publishing this journal in 2005 I have received varied responses ranging from ‘Thank you so much for providing me with a tool to make it easy for my family’, to ‘You’re morbid! Why on earth would I want to think about that?’ I even had one man say ‘No way will I fill this out—I want to leave a mess so that those mongrels take years to sort it all out!’

However, the majority of people who have used the Rest Easy Journal are grateful that they are able to ‘take responsibility for their death during their life’! Palliative care workers have told me that it is a vital tool that can be the catalyst to help people with terminal illness to come to terms with their impending death. Baby Boomers have told me that it has helped them to grow closer to their aging parents because it has provided an opportunity for open discussion about the inevitable and to discover aspects of their parents’ lives that they hadn’t known.

Comments from users include:

“Filling in the journal has given me peace of mind and a chance to think about what needs to be organised to facilitate the whole process.”

“It’s a relief to know those left to cope would know where to find the information or things.”

“I think many of us would like to organise ‘our stuff’ in case of death but just don’t know where to start – this is a great start and is already thought out for us.”

“I couldn’t bring myself to fill it in for months. When I finally found the courage I was glad I did it.”

“My parents in law have days where they are not able to communicate clearly with us. This will guide them to provide us with the information we need to fulfil their wishes - thanks so much.”

Who should fill in the Rest Easy Journal?

EVERYONE—because let’s face it: we all die! It’s never too soon to fill it in. A 13 year old girl asked for a journal because she was quite clear about to whom she wanted her parents to pass special items. Her down to earth approach to her inevitable death was refreshing.

Part of the Rest Easy process is outlining your wishes for your final ceremony. Some people tell me they think this is morbid, but we all have a say in the major events in our lives: our birthdays, engagements, weddings, anniversaries etc., so why can’t we have a say in our funeral? I want my memorial service to be a joyful reflection of my personality so that people walk out saying, “Trust Shanna to make her death as colourful as her life!”

There is also space to point to where your ‘Living Will’ documentation is located, and I encourage you to write notes about how you would like to pass your last days, weeks, months should you discover you have a terminal illness.

You will want to fill in the Rest Easy Journal if (tick the appropriate boxes):

□ You have clear opinions about whether to be cremated or buried.

□ You would like a say in how you transition out of this life—for example via Palliative Care, dying at home etc.

□ You would be mortified if your family decided they wanted to have an Elvis impersonator lead the funeral proceedings because you used to love ‘Viva Las Vegas’

□ You live alone or far from your loved ones (who may have no idea where you keep things).

□ You’re a generally neat and tidy person and want to make a tidy exit.

□ You are a single parent with no adult to help your children to process things.

□ You have discovered you have a terminal illness and want to begin to work through what you need to plan and prepare.

□ You don’t want items you treasured for so long to wind up at the rubbish tip.

□ You want to have the last word—from the grave.

□ You want to free the family up from tension about how your funeral should go or who should have what (believe me, it happens in the most loving of families).

□ You’ve walked away from someone else’s funeral and thought ‘I like the way they...’ or, ‘Oh dear, Muriel would have hated the way they....’ or, ‘I hope my funeral better reflects my personality...’ or, ‘Why on earth did they play that hymn? Alfred hated it!’

My reason for creating the Rest Easy Journal in the first place was because I believe I have certain responsibilities in my life, so it was only natural that I would take the same approach to my death. I was a single parent with a 10 year old son at the time and I lived a long distance from my family. As I didn’t see them regularly, they had no idea where I kept things; who I banked with; what I would have preferred for my funeral etc. The idea of leaving a maze for my family to find their way through was disconcerting for me—I didn’t want anyone to have to clean up my mess!

I decided the best legacy I could leave would be to lay out clearly all the information they would need to process my death with little fuss. I’m also a bit of a control freak, and had clear ideas about cardboard coffins, planted trees instead of cut lilies, favourite music for my memorial etc. I’m also a bit of a dark horse, so I had a few ‘skeletons in the closet’ that I was fine with people knowing about after I was gone. So I gathered up all that information in letters and sheets of paper along with my passport, Will and other important documents and placed it all in a special box (this would also be the box I would ‘grab and go’ should I be confronted with a fire, flood or cyclone).