Discussing Death: Your Free Guide to Talking About Final Wishes

Ever been to a Thanksgiving family dinner where every moment of conversation feels like walking on eggshells? 

Discussions with family and close friends about final wishes and funeral arrangement plans can often elicit a similar feeling.

Planning Daisies is here to help. With our free guide to Discussing Death, we hope to help make conversations easier by giving people the tools they need to have productive conversations with loved ones on this sensitive topic.

Why is “Discussing Death” so hard?

For most, death is an incredibly sensitive topic of discussion - even when talking with our closest friends and family. 

In fact, it’s often this closeness that makes the conversation so difficult. Does anyone enjoy having to think about a world without those we care about the most?

Ignoring the subject does not make it go away either; death is a universal, inevitable outcome that each of us will encounter one day. 

The hard truth is that there’s no “easy way” to start these conversations with the people we love. 

But just like ignoring death does not negate its inevitability, ignoring these conversations does not negate their necessity and importance. 

Why is the discussion so important?

We will all need the services of a funeral home, crematorium, and/or cemetery eventually, and pre-planning our future needs provides significant benefits to both ourselves and the ones we love, in terms of both money saved and peace of mind gained.

The fact is, the death of loved ones is much less painful when there is no guesswork in the planning of their arrangements and how they will be funded. Additionally, ceremony and remembrance are important parts of the grieving process; skipping them can leave unhealed emotional scars with lasting negative impacts.

In the aftermath of the unexpected death of a loved one, many families often express regret that they didn’t pre-plan or at least have some general idea of what the deceased wanted before their passing. 

 Thankfully, we can all avoid this predicament if we take the first step and start the discussion sooner rather than later.

So how do I start the conversation?

Even once you understand the importance of discussing death and pre-planning with your loved ones, broaching the subject in a productive manner can still seem like an insurmountable obstacle.

To help you start these important yet difficult conversations, Planning Daisies has created Discussing Death, a helpful and informative 19-page guide that equips readers with constructive strategies for discussing final wishes and funeral pre-planning with close family and friends.

This concise yet informative guide covers a range of helpful topics including:

• Why discussing death is often treated as taboo

• How to start a constructive conversation with your spouse, parents, friends, or terminally ill loved ones

• What steps to take to honor those final wishes

By providing a better understanding of why conversations about death are often viewed as taboo, Discussing Death helps readers navigate around common conversational pitfalls that often derail discussions about death and pre-planning.

The guide also gives readers helpful tips on how to frame the conversation in a less controversial manner and gently guide a conversation from safer topics towards more serious ones. 

Ready to get started?

Download your FREE copy of Discussing Death and begin learning how to make these difficult but important conversations easier.