1. End of Life
No one wants to talk about the end of their life, but there are things you should know as you enter that stage that will help you recognize the progression. This lesson educates you on Trajectories of Illness, so you know what to expect and reduce the shock. It will also provide an overview of choices available when the time comes as well as types of care that can help with managing their pain and reduce stress for everyone.
2. Final Arrangements
Here is another discussion no one wants to have, but once you do, it relieves tension and allows you to understand your parent’s wishes. You can use this lesson to guide a discussion with your parents concerning what happens to them after their passing. Set it up now, and you won’t be guessing about what to do when you’re staring across the desk from a funeral director.
3. Grief
We take some time in this lesson to talk about grief and its effects it will have on you and others. We give you an overview of the types of grief as well as the five stages of grief, so you know what to expect and can, hopefully, recognize where you are in the process. You can use this Chapter to help others through their grief as well. It will be hard when you’re in the middle of it, but almost everyone makes it out the other side. Those that don’t we recommend professional help.
4. But wait, there’s more – there always is
There is always more to do after your parents passing. Making sure everyone is notified, accounts are closed, businesses are wound down or sold, and many more items that will need your attention. This lesson helps you know what to look for and how to wind down your parent’s affairs in an orderly manner. You can also use this to ask them beforehand what they would like done with things they own, organizations they are involved with, or otherwise handle their estate.
5. Estate Planning
Although we do not provide Estate Planning services, we offer a set of steps to establish an estate plan for any assets your parents might have. Yes, almost everyone has some assets that will need to be taken care of once they are gone. We recommend you work through this with your parents beforehand as it will help in avoiding the court system after they pass and reduce or eliminate arguments over who gets what. We also discuss Trusts and Insurance in the lesson to help you understand how these might work to your parents’ advantage.
6. Documents
This lesson reviews all the documents necessary to manage your parent’s affairs, and yours as an added benefit. These should be established before they are needed. We recommend you get started on these right away, as in right after you finish this course. Once created, these documents will provide everyone with a clear set of directions and instructions on how to have your parent’s wishes known by the family and who can step in when your parents can’t speak for themselves.
7. Build the Plan
Our final lesson gives you the Plan to pull all of the previous recommendations and documents together in a short time frame. We have you set a schedule of events that can be coordinated with other family members while spreading out the workload. Once completed, you will have items in place that will reduce emotion, stress, anxiety, and fear of the unknown so that you can focus on what is important – being with your parents.
Throughout this course, we provide you with over 30 checklists and worksheets to guide you through each lesson. Following these lists and sheets will help you focus on what needs to be done so that you can spend more time together.
Price $195
Here are the topics included in The Final Chapter
You can see a an overview of the Complete Toolkit,
which includes The Last Chapter, at this link.
Count the costs.
Do it yourself. Some can do this and they do a fair job of it. But at what cost? Think about time spent finding all the pieces and parts you need , trying to put them together, communicating best guess’s with your parents and siblings, and potentially not knowing what you missed. If you start now it might take several hours a night over several weeks and months. How valuable is your time, especially if you’re in the middle of taking care of your parents now? Oh, and don’t forget all the other responsibilities you have, take a minute a list them before taking this step and choose those you can drop while searching and organizing.
Hire someone. A professional’s time is anywhere between $150 to $450 per hour, you are paying for experience. You will have to hire someone eventually, but do you want to be paying all the up-front hours they will need to sort out your parents life? Do you think it would be better to walk into their office with everything in place and only have to pay for what they do best?
You can wing it. Some people are really good at this, but you need to be aware of unintended consequences and the stress, anxiety, uncertainty, and doubt that comes with that. You may also miss important aspects of caregiving that could impact your parents and you. You’ll be putting you, your family, children, siblings, aunts, uncles, and parents through some stressful times. Wouldn’t it be better to know what’s coming and have a plan to follow so that everyone knows what to expect. Think hard about this choice. I’m not sure how to measure avoiding stress, but I know everyone wants to!
Our goal is that everyone in the family works together on this course. thereby spreading the knowledge around. It will impact your family for generations: your parents, you, your children, and their children. It is something that should be passed down for generations, to Honor your parents, so it goes well with you.