{"id":217,"date":"2013-10-25T06:48:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T10:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/162.243.23.127:8081\/2013\/10\/25\/i-planned-my-own-funeral\/"},"modified":"2013-10-25T06:48:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T10:48:00","slug":"i-planned-my-own-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/?p=217","title":{"rendered":"I Planned My Own Funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"
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                           (photo courtesy of  gualberto107\/freedigitalphotos.net)<\/span><\/p>\n

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I guess I really am a total organizer or control freak, not sure which one, but I planned my own funeral. <\/span>I actually planned my funeral at age 40 -I am now 54.  At age 40, I had 3 friends die of cancer and I was feeling very vulnerable.  At age 40 I had 2 young children, a daughter in college,  3 cats, 2 fish tanks and a husband.  At age 40, I started to think, what if I am next. <\/span><\/div>\n

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You have to understand, I have some good genes that have been passed down.  My father is 95 and my mother is 89.  They still live independently, still go volunteer at a facility that helps clothe the homeless, still walk a couple of miles at 5:30 in the morning, still work outside in the yard, still go play golf, still play bridge with friends and still love to read.  I have 6 brothers and sisters and so far we are all very healthy with the normal scares and hiccups but all doing well.  So, if gene pool accounts for anything, I am in the right swimming pool!  So, why the need to plan my funeral? <\/span><\/div>\n
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At age 40 I had been married 15 years to the same man I am married to now 14 years later.  I knew then what I know now; he would become totally overwhelmed at making decisions about my funeral should something happen to me.  The whole process would devastate him and leave him spent.  He would second guess and worry that he was not doing the right thing by me and he would certainly make it a bigger deal than I would want, so I did him a favor and took all the questions out of the equation.  I put my funeral wishes all in black in white…….leaving nothing for him to have to ponder or worry over. <\/span><\/div>\n

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Many people do not like to talk about the end of life but the fact of the matter is…….it is one of life’s inevitables – death and taxes.  I personally think it is a gift you can give to those you leave behind;  have your affairs in order and make your wishes known leaving no room for guilt, questions and unknowns.  <\/span><\/div>\n

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Let me end this by saying, I plan on living many more happy, healthy, fun-filled, fantastic years, but in the event of my untimely demise, my funeral plans are in the important papers box in my office.  Now, I am off to go do some serious living!<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                           (photo courtesy of  gualberto107\/freedigitalphotos.net) I guess I really am a total organizer or control freak, not sure which one, but I planned my own funeral. I actually planned my funeral at age 40 -I am now 54.  At age 40, I had 3 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,6,31,14,20,32,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-change","category-de-clutter","category-emotional-clutter","category-funeral-planning","category-heartache","category-home-organization","category-saying-goodbye","category-tears"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggywbarnes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}