If you’re a single woman, you need to plan your death.
Actually, if you’re anyone you need to plan your death. But this post is directed specifically at solo/single women. The Spinster’s Guide to Death is a 4-part series on (you guessed it):
Death and the Single Woman
The fear of dying alone has prompted many a single woman to settle for a less-than-ideal partner. It’s like the ultimate bad death, next to being horribly murdered. We see it on TV, read about it in the news, and shudder.
I’ll talk more about this fear in parts 3 and 4 of this series. In this post, I’m going to focus on the two main reasons you need to plan your death:
- It’ll bring you peace of mind.
- It’s your responsibility, not your family’s.
Let me explain these two reasons in a little more detail.
The Comfort of Planning for Death
When I was younger, I came across Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. The story follows a Chinese peasant family before World War I. I loved the book, but was struck by the strange way they handled death. When one of the characters is dying, her husband buys her a coffin and sets it in the room where she can see it. The sight gives her great comfort.
This raised a few questions in my American, 90s kid mind:
- Wouldn’t it have been more loving to insist she’d get well than to admit she was dying?
- Even if denial wasn’t an option, why put the coffin—a constant reminder of her impending death—right in front of her?
- Why would the sight of one’s own coffin comfort someone who didn’t want to die?
It would take years for me to begin to understand how the sight of one’s coffin could be a source of comfort. The culture in the novel’s rural Chinese village was extremely different from the one I grew up in, where death was almost never mentioned and certainly never seen. There, as in many societies in many different times, death was not something that could be ignored. It was the only sure thing in life.
The dying woman in the book knew she was dying, and so did everyone else. Rather than try to comfort her by denying this fact, they comforted her by showing her that she would have a good death. Her coffin was paid for. She would be buried properly and have a proper grave that her family would visit. She didn’t have to worry about what would happen to her remains—and by extension her soul—after her death.
{Psst! You’re entering the part of the post that contains affiliate links to death-positive resources. Please read my affiliate disclaimer here.}
The Discomfort of Stranger Danger Death
In her bestselling book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory
One woman called to ask if bodies were kept hanging on meat hooks in the refrigerator like sides of beef. An enraged gentlemen informed me that we shouldn’t be charging or a sea scattering because all that meant was “dumpin’ the ashes in the toilet with a packet of salt and flushing.”
It broke my heart to hear them, even the ones who were screaming at me. Holy crap, you’ve been thinking that? I thought. You think you’re going to die and be hung on a meat hook before being thrown into a bonfire of corpses and flushed down the toilet?
Doughty finds that the more straightforward she is about the decomposition, embalming, and cremation process she is—even the indelicate parts—the more relieved people are. It reminded me of my teenage curiosity about death, which ultimately led me to the goth subculture. I’d just wanted to know about the only guaranteed part of my life. The part no one (except the goths) ever wanted to talk about. I wanted to pull back the dark overcoat and see what this lurking stranger looked like underneath. And once death wasn’t a stranger, she really wasn’t so bad.
I mean, have you met Neil Gaiman’s Death? She’s rad.
It’s Time to Take Responsibility for Your Death
I used to say, as many folks do, “I don’t care what my family does with my body. They can dump in the trash for all the craps I give about it.” But that was before I really embraced the solo life. As a solo woman in my 30s, everything in my life is my responsibility. And that includes my death.
I came to realize how irresponsible it was to leave everything for my surviving relatives to take care of when I began working with estate accounts. People would come in to the financial office, half-dazed by the shock of a death, trying to understand legal issues most people can’t interpret without a lawyer. Arranging for the simplest funeral was often overwhelming. Basically, everything involved with the legal side of death was foreign, expensive, and confusing for the survivors.
The other factor was that I had actually started to care about what happened to my body. When I first saw the Bios Urn
The Spinster’s Relationship with Death
Okay, so what does all this have to do with being single and/or childfree? A lot, actually. Here are the main reasons you, as a solo woman, need to plan your death:
- You can’t (and shouldn’t) depend on someone else to do it for you. You don’t have the luxury of assuming your spouse or child will handle things for you.
- Your death plan includes your life plan. As someone without a spouse or kids, you’ve got to set clear guidelines for what your next-of-kin should do if you’re incapacitated.
- Your death plan matters. Like I said, I’ll go into this more in the third installment of this blog series. For now, I’ll just say there’s a reason so many people fear dying alone.
Let’s look at these in a bit more detail.
#1 – You can’t (and shouldn’t) depend on someone else to plan your death.
If you aren’t married and don’t have kids, your next-of-kin is probably a parent. If they die before you, it’ll be your next closest family member. Does that person know what your wishes are? Do they want that responsibility? Do you want them making those decisions for you?
Don’t put a loved one in a situation where they have to grieve for you while wondering what you would have wanted and trying to figure out how to handle your estate. It’s not loving, and it’s not good for either of you. Remember, you can’t always count on a quick and easy death. Do you want your estranged aunt to be the one who decides whether or not to pull the plug?
#2 – Your death plan includes your life plan.
As stated above, you can’t always count on clean, sudden death. If you’re in an accident and can’t make decisions for yourself, someone else is going to make them for you. That is, unless you plan your death and have a clear advance directive in place. This form, which I’ll talk about in detail in the next post, tells healthcare providers what your wishes are should you become incapacitated.
#3 – Your death plan matters.
Again, I’ll talk more about why this is so important in the third post in this series. Sometimes death carries you off in the blink of an eye. Other times it’s a process. You deserve to be comfortable and safe during that process. Additionally, the fear of what that process might look like for someone who’s “alone” has been the foundation of many fear-based decisions.
Hopefully by now I’ve convinced you that you need to plan your death. If you’re ready to learn more, subscribe to The American Spinster email list to be notified as soon as I post the next installment.
In the meantime, cozy on up to your own mortality by visiting the Ask a Mortician YouTube channel.
