How can I help educate my community about end of life issues?

It has recently dawned on me — and it was when George Floyd was murdered and thinking about the difficulties in having conversation — what I realized, is that we as a society are so uncomfortable with other people's discomfort that we end up just not talking. Whether it's about race or about end of life or you name any other topic that we're uncomfortable with. 

First and foremost, just have conversations with those closest to you, family and friends. Bring up what your end of life wishes You don't have to be in your 80s to do this. I mean, car accidents happen all the time. COVID obviously has been a big wake up call for a lot of people. Just having the conversations, imagining for yourself, if it were my time, how would I choose to spend the rest of my precious life? 

Start with the people closer to you, but even consider bringing up the topic of end of life through things like book clubs or other social outlets where you're able to introduce it in a non-threatening way. We just started a project called The Art of COVID. And it occurred to me that art is such a great way to introduce the end of life topic. It's about finding creative ways to work it in to conversation in a non-threatening manner. Then really help people understand that they have choice. 

So many folks look at medical professionals as the authority, which they are obviously highly trained, but, but they're just as uncomfortable as the rest of us when it comes to talking about death. So you could help advocate for people to understand that they have choices at end of life and that they don't have to go out separated from family and attached to a bunch of machines. If you want that, great, but there are other choices as well. Those are some of the ways people can help educate their community, both personal community and the wider community as well.