BE PREPARED: PERSONAL TRANSITIONING

Some of the most difficult transitions are personal ones, including confronting the inevitable. It is a generational transition as well. Planning way ahead maximizes the control you can exert and prevents and relieves a lot of stress on family. Yet, given the strong emotional factors involved, people put off planning , getting documents in order, consulting health, financial, legal and other advisers and communicating their most personal thoughts and wishes. Rationally, we know we are not immortal, but many of us act as if we are.

To the rescue, popular and highly respected New York Times Personal Health columnist Jane Brody has put all you need to think about and discuss into a heartfelt book, her latest, "Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond" (Random House 2009). It is subtitled " A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life." While this is clearly a serious subject, it is written with her light touch and includes several New Yorker cartoons.

Brody describes herself as "a staunch advocate of a healthy life filled with nutritious food and regular exercise designed to help people live life as fully as possible."  She explains and gives examples of how planning and preparing helps people live as well as possible and experience comfort and joy right up till the end. Thoroughly researched, there are so many options spelled out, many most of us would never have known about.

I highly recommnend you get your copy and digest and follow it as early as you can. Use it as a jumping off point for sensitive and honest communications with your adult children and with your parents, depending on where you fall on the generational spectrum.

We never know what is around the corner for us whether regarding work or personal matters. "Be prepared" is not just for Boy Scouts. When we have done and communicated all we can, we can rest easier for possibly many decades to come.

Phyllis Weiss Haserot    www.pdcounsel.com