‘Designing your death?’  you may be thinking. ‘Is she really writing a blog on how to die as a lonely, old woman?’ Don’t worry, I’m not. I’m simply telling you how you can plan for your death so you won’t fear dying alone.

Contrary to popular belief:

1. You don’t need to get married and have kids to avoid dying alone.
2. Getting married and having kids won’t prevent you from dying alone anyway.

I touched on this in the last blog, but the jist of it is this: Spouses die. Children bail. As I’ve said before, you’re not so unloveable that only a ring on your finger and a bun in the oven will save you from dying alone. You have, or can have, friends and family who love you and will stay by your side when the reaper comes calling.

{This post contains links to death-positive resources. Please read my affiliate disclosure here.}

But What if You Are Alone?

What if, when your time comes, you’ve outlived all of your close family and friends? If the vision of lying abandoned in a sterile room, gasping out your last is clouding your vision, relax. Let me take you through a recent discovery of mine that may change the way you feel about dying ‘alone.’

Personally, the thought of being surrounded by my loved ones as I leave this world isn’t actually a comforting one for me. I know it sounds strange, because dying alone is such a deep-rooted fear in most people. And while I wouldn’t want to necessarily die alone, dying before an audience is—for me—the worse of those two extremes.

I don’t want to spend my last moments nervous and uncomfortable, trying to comfort other people. So what’s the solution for someone who doesn’t have anyone left, or who simply wants to be cared for (instead of doing the caring) on her death bed?

Designing Your Death with a Doula

As I was preparing this blog series, a new upload to the Ask A Mortician YouTube channel showed me a third option.

I’d heard the term “death doula” in Doughty’s book Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it. But listening to Alua Arthur explain what she does, I felt an overwhelming sense of recognition. “Yes,” my mind seemed to tell me. “That’s what I want my death to look like.”

I know many people will look at the idea of hiring someone to show you kindness in your final hours as a pitiable situation, but I don’t. Caregiving is a valuable service. I’ve advised people to consider the possibility of hiring a caregiver rather than raising a child in the hope that it will one day care for you in your old age. I also love clear expectations and interpersonal contracts. So the idea of hiring a death doula to take care of me in a way that will make me comfortable (rather than the way that will make my family feel comfortable) looks excellent.

Now, at the moment, my death plan doesn’t include anything like this. I’m still in my early 30s and, thankfully, in good health. So if I’m to die soon it’ll likely be due to an accident. When I get older, or if I find out I’m dying due to illness, I’ll hire a death doula.

How to Go About Designing Your Death

In the last post, I talked about making your advance directive and formal arrangements for your funeral. You can include all of the plans you make for your end-of-life care in your advance directive. But before you write that all in, you’ve got to decide what you want.

This blog is simply about designing your death. Think about what you want it to look like. Is your family surrounding you? Are your pets there? Are you at home, in a hospice center, or somewhere else? Remember that you might not be able to express yourself when the time comes, so it’s really important to plan ahead and write everything down.

Take a few minutes (or a few days) to imagine what you want your final hours to be like. When you know what you want, tell the person who can make those arrangements (your power of attorney or healthcare proxy, usually).

Selfish, Even in Death

“We should only think of ourselves in this life, of our own death.” – The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

As a single person without children, I’ve been called selfish many times for many reasons. And someone will probably say that it’s selfish of me to make all of these decisions myself instead of letting my family handle my death as they want. And maybe choosing to die the way I want is actually selfish. Maybe excluding my family from my deathbed is an unkindness to them. But, because I wouldn’t begrude anyone I love the opportunity to die as they like, I won’t withhold that from myself. Death is the one thing that has been guaranteed to me in life, and I believe it’s a deeply personal event. To me it seems more personal than getting married, having a baby, or even being born.

The way I see it, designing your death the way you want to is your right. More than that, it’s liberating. It takes a little bit of background anxiety out of your life.

What do you think? Is this just morbid, or is it an act of self-determination? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

If you’re still a little uneasy about the idea of dying alone, stay tuned for the final installment of A Spinster’s Guide to Death, coming out on October 31st.

You know why you need to plan your death as a single woman. But do you know how? In part 2 of A Spinster’s Guide to Death, I’m going to tell you how to plan your death as an unmarried, childfree woman.

Why This Is a Must-Read Blog

Let me be clear. You could go get a book on estate planning to learn how to plan your death. In fact, just about any estate planning book would give you more of the nitty gritty details than this blog post will. The only reason I think I’ve got something of value to say on the matter is because I’m writing specifically for single, childfree women.

The solo death is a sad one in our society. It’s so feared that some of us prefer to ‘settle’ than to risk dying alone. But let me tell you, it’s all a sham. If you’ve ever visited a nursing home, you know that it doesn’t matter how many husbands you have or babies you pop out. Anyone can die alone. And, in my opinion and individual experience, it’s the women who depend on others to care for them in their old age who are most likely to end up abandoned.

Caitlin Doughty talks about the fear of dying alone in her “Ask a Mortician” YouTube series:

As a solo woman, you actually have an advantage when planning for your death. And not just because you get to avoid the drama of leaving your estate to your children or making sure your spouse doesn’t get your inheritance. It’s because you get to make your own decisions instead of hoping someone else will do everything for you. As I mentioned in Part 1, there’s a lot of comfort in that.

How to Plan Your Death

When it comes to estate planning as a single woman (if you’re thinking, “Estate planning? I don’t have an estate,” listen. Even if you’re poor as a church mouse, you’ve got to plan your living will and make arrangements for your pets and your own funeral. That’s estate planning), there are really only three main documents you need to prepare.

But before we dive into this, I recommend you:

• Make a cup of tea
• Get a notebook or open a word file
• Sit down in bed

Learning how to plan your death isn’t going to be as nerve-wracking as you think. I promise. Planning your death is like doing your budget: You can make yourself sick worrying about it, but once it’s done you feel far more in control of your life (even if your checkbook is in the red).

{Let me put a quick disclaimer here. I am not an attorney, a financial adviser, or involved in the death industry. This guide is simply meant as an introduction to and a jumping off point for planning your death as a single woman.}

#1. Advance Directive (Living Will)

No matter who you are, you’ve got to arrange your advance directive. But if you’re a single woman, you’ve really, really got to set up your advance directive. I talked about why this is important in Part I, but here’s a quick recap: You can’t just depend on your (non-existent) spouse to figure out your wishes once you’re incapacitated. For that matter, you can’t really count on your parents or next-of-kin to do what you want, even if you have made your wishes clear (and let’s be honest, most of us haven’t). I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be in a coma while my family (including those members who don’t like me) squabble about whether or not to pull the plug. That is my decision.

#2. Pet Trusts

I wish I could tell you I’ve cracked the code on writing water-tight pet trusts but… I can’t. The truth is they’re complicated and they vary from state to state. But if you’re not familiar with the concept, here’s the jist of it.

Setting up a trust is kind of like taking a little piece out of your estate and setting it aside. When you die, anything that’s in a trust can go to whomever you’ve left it to right away. It doesn’t have to go through probate, which, in the case of a pet trust, means your pet isn’t hanging out in limbo.

What makes pet trusts a bit trickier than a money-only trust is that you’ll probably want to include your pet (legally considered a piece of property), money (if you have it) and some explicit instructions on who gets the money and how they can use it. Let me show you a few scenarios.

Scenario 1

Let’s say your best friend has agreed to take care of your cat should you die. You want to make sure your cat gets the right treatment, so you figure how much money it’ll take to care for your pet (food, grooming, vet bills, etc) and include that in your pet trust. You decide to name an executor (usually a lawyer) to be responsible for the money. The executor distributes the money in yearly or monthly increments instead of giving it to your friend in a lump sum. You include specific details regarding how often your cat should be taken to a vet, what type of exercise she’ll get, and what kind of food she’ll eat.

Scenario 2

Now let’s say you have a parrot who’ll likely outlive you. You can’t leave him to a friend, because your friends are all close to your age. You decide to make a particular bird refuge the beneficiary of your pet trust upon your death.

Then you change your mind and decide that, if you die young, your friend will take care of your bird until she’s unable to. You include instructions in the trust stating that your bird will go to the bird sanctuary when your friend can no longer care for him.

You can do any and all of what I’ve just described. Right down to deciding which brand of food you want your pet to eat, if you really want to. However, I don’t recommend trying to set up a pet trust, even a simple one, without a lawyer. It’s not a DIY kind of thing.

#3. Burial and Funeral Arrangements

Choosing what becomes of your remains takes a huge weight off of your surviving friends and relatives. It can also give you a sense of peace. This information is often included in your advance directive or your will. However, you can go so far as to purchase a spot at the funeral of your choice and sometimes pre-pay or your funeral service.

The natural cemetery I’ve chosen for myself doesn’t offer pre-payment (known as a pre-need account), but they do have a form future corpses can fill out. I’ve got a copy of mine with my advance directive. Because it’s a natural cemetery, I have no casket to buy and no embalming or cremation to pay for. I just have to make very clear guidelines in my advance directive about what may and may not be done with my body. For example, my body must be refrigerated (not embalmed) and transferred across state lines to a funeral home that works with the cemetery.

It seems a little complicated, but it’s completely do-able.

How to Set It All Up (Death Planning Resources)

Okay, so now you know what you need. Now how do you get a hold of these forms and make sure they’re legitimate? I’m glad you asked.

Online Legal Forms

Websites like Legal Zoom and Rocket Lawyer are inexpensive sources for all of your death planning forms. If you use these, I highly recommend taking your finished forms to a lawyer to have them look over everything. It’s less expensive to pay for a lawyer’s seal of approval than it is to have them draft the documents themselves.

Everplans

Let me say right off the bat that I’ve never used Everplans and don’t know whether this is a worthwhile subscription service. However, they do have some free resources, include advance directives by state. They offer to “securely store wills, passwords, funeral wishes, and more in your own secure and shareable vault.” Have you tried them? Let me know what you thought in the comments below.

Local Lawyers

They’re much more expensive than the resources listed above, but they’re also much more reliable. If you have the money to go to a lawyer and have them arrange your will and trusts, go for it.

You can also always call a funeral home and ask them how you can set up a funeral plan with them. Don’t underestimate the power of simply asking questions, even on a macabre topic like death planning.

How to Plan Your Death Day

Everything I’ve talked about in this post deals with what happens after you die. But we can’t have a full discussion about how to plan your death without talking about your dying process. This is the part that scares people. This is the reason that people marry when they probably shouldn’t and have kids that they don’t really want. And not just single women, but the majority of all human beings. In Part 3, I’ll get into how to plan your death process.

Remember, none of this is as scary or overwhelming as it first seems. If the thought of dying alone makes you feel uncomfortable (or terrified), come back next week.

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:

1. It’ll bring you peace of mind.
2. 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, mortician Caitlin Doughty talks about listening to people’s fears about what will happen to their bodies after they die.

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, I remember thinking, “Oh wow, my death could actually do some good. I could be part of the circle of life for real.” Later, when I started watching Caitlin Doughty’s Ask a Mortician YouTube channel (which later led to me buying her books), my eyes opened to the realities of the death industry. I didn’t want my body to slowly liquefy in an anti-decomposition lead box. In fact, I found out that what I really wanted was to be laid to rest in a conservation cemetery in my home state. Imagine me, the woman who once thought a Hefty bag on the sidewalk awaiting the trash compactor would be a fine funeral, becoming sentimental about death.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.