Before funerals at funeral homes in Harborcreek, PA, one of the things that each of us should do, no matter what age we are, where we are in our lives’ journeys, and no matter how far away death may seem, is to take stock of our lives – and our deaths – and ask some important questions about the end of our lives.
One of the questions we should think about is what things about ourselves that we don’t want to be remembered for. This question requires us to be thoroughly honest with ourselves and look at ourselves without excuses, without blame of others, without justifications. That can be the hard part for each of us, but once we do it, we can begin the process of eliminating those things we don’t want to be remembered for when we die.
We all have those things about our personalities or temperaments that cause us problems in our lives. It may be a quick temper or a sharp tongue or being argumentative. It might be a habit that we don’t like or that we would like to get rid of. By thinking about these things long before we die, we can take the action to tame or change them.
Another question we should ask ourselves about our deaths is whether dying scares us, and, if it does, what is it specifically makes us afraid. Even if we’ve been with loved ones when they have died or we work in a profession where death is something we deal with on a regular basis (such as the medical and funeral professions), the reality is that none of knows firsthand exactly what happens when we die.
The experience is mysterious, and the thought of it being the end of our conscious existence may cause us to harbor fears we’re aware of or ones that we are not aware of. Examining our fears about death often takes their power away and can help us be less afraid when death finally does approach.
Regrets are something we all have simply because we’ve lived life. Some of those regrets are simply questions marks about what might have happened if we’d make different choices at some point or along the way in our lives. They’re not earth-shattering or even bad, but instead “what if’s.”
However, all of us have – hopefully, very few – some regrets that are painful and we wish we could go back and fix them if we were the source of them or that the situations that caused them could be reversed to turn out more positively. In that vein, another question that we should ask ourselves about our deaths is what we think we’ll regret most as our lives come to an end.
If the answers to that question can be remedied, then there is no time like the present to start repairing or changing them. If they cannot, then we need to find a way to make peace with them and leave them in the past that we cannot change.
A final question we should ask ourselves about our deaths is what will happen to all our stuff. Most of us have a lot of stuff that we’ve accumulated. We either can’t bring ourselves to go through it and purge what we don’t need (either by giving it or throwing it away) or we don’t take the time. This needs to be a priority, because there are things that we can distribute now before we die, there are things that no one will want, and there are things that we’ll want to make sure go to certain people when we die.
For more guidance on thinking about death from funeral homes in Harborcreek, PA, our compassionate and experienced staff at Brugger Funeral Homes & Crematory, LLP can help. You can come by our funeral home at 845 E 38th St., Erie, PA, 16504 or you can contact us today at (814) 825-2500.
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