Is Your Life in Order?

When we wake in the morning or drift off to sleep at night, we take for granted that we will be alive the next day and for a long time afterwards. We do not anticipate getting out of our vehicle to help an accident victim, only to have our life ended by a careless driver. Despite knowing that obesity or smoking can lead to a heart attack, when it hits we are taken by surprise. We vow to eat healthy or quit smoking. Once the initial relief of surviving the stroke wears off, we drift back to our old habits.

When she was in the last stages of terminal cancer, Aunt Babe told her son "I must have thought I was going to live forever, I bought so many sweaters." My father put off writing a will because he felt he would die as soon as he wrote one. He died intestate. Julie did not expect to lose her health-conscious young husband to cancer so soon after their most romantic courtship and wedding. Dying was far from the mind of a teenager with a bright future while sitting on a curb after a football game, when a gang member's stray bullet took her life.

Although adults do know that we are all going to die someday, we often live our lives as if we have endless tomorrows. How many of us have our lives in order in the event of unexpected death?

If we die suddenly do our next-of-kin have access to our many Internet accounts? Will they notify our Facebook friends that we are no longer among the living or leave friends wondering, what ever happened to Suzy Q?

This article is inspired by Associated Content contributor, Alban Mehling. I was checking my subscriptions for active writers when I read his last article, dated May 30, 2010, Update for My Friends. He wrote "If I choose that option I have 2 weeks or less to live. My lungs will fill with fluid and my body will shut down. Just for today that is not a viable option." Did he choose that option?

A Facebook friend who updates her status daily stopped posting for several days. She has a pacemaker and heart defibrillator. She had been experiencing dizziness and not feeling well. While she was away I wondered if her husband would update her status in case of death. Being hospitalized was the reason for her absence from the site.

Take a moment today to ask yourself if your life is in order. If you were to die before you wake, would a loved one have presence of mind to notify your Internet friends that you are gone? A bereaved spouse, child, or friend may not think it is important to share news of your death with friends you never met. Yet we can become spiritually close to strangers we meet online. We miss them, think about them and would like to know of their death, if only to share our condolences with the bereaved.

When you make a mental checklist of things to do to put your life in order, do remember to include your Internet friends. It is always a good idea to express love and gratitude to our loved ones, including people we meet on the web. We never know when we lay down to sleep, or wake in the morning if it will be our last opportunity to do so.