The Greatest Gift you can Give!

My father was diagnosed with cancer and given 2 years to live. He was in his early 60’s. I was trying to come around to accepting the diagnosis, as was he, when, 8 days after being told he had cancer, he died. He died still wanting to live, asking where the 2 years went, where his time went.

It was hard. To lose my father like that, it was devastating.

You know what made that time even harder? Having to make decisions for him about his wishes for after his death, without knowing what his wishes were. Having to decide whether to bury or cremate – what would he have wanted? Church service? Flowers? 

Sitting on the computer at midnight the night before the funeral, four siblings who had just lost their father, trying to decide and agree on music for the service. What would he want, what were his last wishes?

It went further than that. Where was his will? We know he had one, but it’s a few years on now, and we still haven’t found it.

Bank accounts – who did he bank with? Social media accounts – what did he want done with these? We can’t agree on much at all.  

You get the point. In our grief, the last thing we need is to be put in a position where we are making decisions for our lost loved ones without having a full understanding of what they would have wanted.

We don’t want to get that wrong. We also don’t want to burden our loved ones with that stress on top of their grief.

So it was after my father passed and after the ordeal of having to make decisions about his last wishes without knowing what they were, that I vowed I would never put my loved ones through that same situation. I would record what my last wishes were and leave that for them, so that when the time came, in their grief they wouldn’t have to play a guessing game around what my last wishes might have been. This is how Life’s Last Wishes was born, and it was born to help us make sure our wishes are known when we die, and to relieve our loved ones of the burden of having to decide for us. Life’s Last Wishes is the single greatest gift you can give your loved ones.

Where you are on your life’s journey is irrelevant – Life’s Last Wishes is for everyone.

It’s for you. There is no time like the present to take steps to record your wishes. Life’s Last Wishes is a chance for some self-reflection and a way to share your thoughts, values, passions, dreams and lessons with your loved ones and future generations. This is your legacy.

It’s for your parents, children and loved ones.

My Dad’s sudden passing had me wishing I’d had a Life’s Last Wishes in my life, and that I had sat with my Dad to complete his last wishes. Not only would it have saved my siblings and I much despair in our grief, it would have given my Dad and I a wonderful opportunity to have these conversations, to talk about his life, and what his wishes were. You can purchase Life’s Last Wishes for your parents or loved ones and go through the process with them, or gift it to them to complete themselves in their own time. Either way, it's about making sure our wishes are known and leaving less decision making and far less stress to those left behind in their grief.

There is no time like the present – you never know when it’s going to be too late.

Life’s Last Wishes will guide you through a process of considering and documenting your last wishes – so you can have your say about what happens after you die and so you can relieve your loved ones of the burden of having to decide for you.

Life’s Last Wishes allows you to document information around your wishes in regard to your funeral and end of life ceremony. It includes sections for your wishes around your eulogy, burial, memories you want to leave with others, a few of your favourite things, social media and email account instructions, and much more.  You can load up video links, audio links and leave messages to be played at your funeral, or to be delivered to your loved ones after you're gone.  How about leaving a final post for your social media channels?  

All this can be documented and stored easily – the greatest gift you can give your loved ones is your life’s last wishes. You can even print your Life’s Last Wishes Manifesto when you're done, or save it to the cloud, keep a copy with your will and give a copy to those you love.  

Access for 60 days costs $67 AUD. This is enough time for you to consider and document all the information you would like included in your Life’s Last Wishes manifesto. You will be reminded when you reach 30 days and again at 57 days to let you know you are coming close to the end of your subscription. When you’re done, you can export your manifesto to your computer, print it, file it with other important documents and share it electronically with your loved ones and executor. You can also save the documents to a cloud based drive (iCloud, OneDrive, Dropbox, Googledocs etc).

You will be provided with a Manifesto as your final electronic document. You can then print and save this as you wish. You can also return to update your information at any time, with 30 days access for $30 AUD. Once you’ve updated your existing Life’s Last Wishes manifesto, you can download the updated version, and print and save as you wish.

Life’s Last Wishes is comprehensive but you only need complete the areas that you wish to – that are important to you. Your final document will only show the sections you have completed.

No. Life’s Last Wishes doesn’t replace your will - you should have a will and that is separate to Life’s Last Wishes. Life’s Last Wishes isn’t a legal document, which means you can leave memories, photos, notes, letters, videos, audio recordings – that you generally wouldn't include in a legal will.  You can make sure nothing is left unsaid.

This document will not be legally binding but given it is about your last wishes around your funeral, end of life celebration and other wishes, it is likely that they will be honoured to the extent possible by your loved ones.  We do recommend you keep a copy of your Life's Last Wishes manifesto with your will.  

Life's Last Wishes also asks you to nominate people you can trust to hold a copy of your final Life's Last Wishes manifesto.  You can give them a hard copy, send them a link to the document loaded in the cloud (eg Google Docs) or send them an electronic copy.  When you're completing your Life’s Last Wishes you'll see it’s a wonderful opportunity to have a conversation with those you love - in fact, you might choose to do it together with them.