There are so many on this thread that are saying they will just off themselves. I think we are all in for a rude awakening. In my experience, having shepherded many elderly relatives to their final days, in the end you don’t actually want to die. I’m currently caring for an elderly family member who is 84 has terminal cancer and is in a small amount of pain. She cannot do the things that would normally give her joy. She sits and watches TV all day, which is not her norm. However, despite having spent decades as a member of the hemlock society, always voting for d advocating for assisted suicide, and having access to the means to kill herself, she still persists! I think we are all under estimating what our will to live really will be like at that last moment. I also cared for another elderly family member, a gun owner, and a real tough guy, who always said that if he suffered any disability, he would immediately kill himself. He would see a friend who lost a foot “oh, I wouldn’t live through that. I’d shoot myself!” He would know somebody who had to be helped with toileting “Oh, I’d never live with that! I’d shoot myself!” Well, he spent his last five years, barely shuffling from room to room in a house filled with loaded firearms. He clung to life like a cat on a screen door, people! in the end the will to live is way stronger than we think it is.

My actual end of life care plan is the fact that I’m part of a family where we care for each other. All of the younger kids-and by that I mean people in their 20s and 30s!-have watched us as we’ve cared for the elderly people in our family. My own children have been told that my wallet will be very very open when it is time for me to move in with someone. I’ve joked with them that their kitchen remodeling plan can be to have grandma (me!) move in! Caring for someone in their final days can be treated as a burden or as part of your life cycle. I’m choosing the latter!