Recently, I read an article about a speaker at the World Conference on Assisted Dying who advocated the inhalation of helium as a way of taking one’s own life.

I said to my husband Bob, “Helium? No way. My last words would be high pitched squeaky sounds. I’d be saying ‘good-bye’ like a munchkin. Then I’d start laughing like a cackling munchkin. How humiliating.”

He stopped washing dishes and slowly turned to stare at me with a look that said, “You’re making up another idiotic scenario.”

It’s important that we express our final wishes. It’s a difficult subject, but we need to be strong.

Bob approached this last week. “Have you thought about cremation versus burial?”

I covered my ears with my hands and belted out the song, “I’M GETTING MARRIED IN THE MORNING  . . .  .”

“We should talk about this.”

“DING-DONG THE BELLS ARE GONNA CHIME  . . .  .”

“Sweetheart,” he took my hands. “Let’s discuss it.”

“Well, if you cremate me, just make sure I’m dead first. And forget organ donation. The doctor could have a nephew who needs a kidney and say I’m a goner while I’m still breathing. Did you know the fear of being buried alive is called taphephobia?”

He sighed. “It is truly remarkable that your myriad of phobias now extends until after you’re dead.”

“I can’t talk now. I have to wash my hands.”

“Wait a minute. We’ve never discussed any of this. Have you ever thought about whether or not you’d want to be maintained on machines if that’s the only way of keeping you alive?”

“You mean if I can’t make my own decisions and I’m declared mentally incompetent?”

“Trust me. No one who’s ever met you will notice.”

“The answer is yes.”

“You want to be kept alive while you lie in one position? While you don’t even feed yourself and somebody does everything for you?” He thought a minute. “Oh, I get it. That’s no different from how you are now.”

“One thing I know,” I said, “is you shouldn’t spend much money on my funeral. And I’ll want a senior citizen’s discount.”

I couldn’t sleep that night. So I did some writing. Around 3, I came to bed. “I’ve written my eulogy,” I said, tenderly touching Bob’s cheek. “You’re right about me not facing reality. So  . . .  here goes.”

I read out loud, “Saralee was a paragon of mental fortitude and stability. She wasn’t really a hypochondriac the way each of her 12 doctors said, and was only claustrophobic in the back seats of cars, where she never actually vomited much.

Saralee fulfilled her lifelong dream of piloting the space shuttle where, always the Samaritan, she spent most of her time calming the panicking astronauts as they periodically freaked out. 

Voted Most Beautiful Person seven years in a row by People Magazine, she was a perfect size 5 her entire adult life.

She will be remembered most for her highly intellectual writing which always included sophisticated subtle humor. Every Friday evening, she’d have cocktails with Norman Mailer at his home in Provincetown, Massachusetts. There, he’d often ask her to read his unfinished works so that she could tell him how to make the endings really good.”

Bob yanked the paper out of my hands and tore it up.

And so, last night I finally talked about my wishes. It was hard. But I remembered that two days after my mother’s burial, I found her living will and her funeral requests. I had not given her what she wanted. This still makes me cry.

I shared my wishes with Bob partly for me. But what mattered even more, was that I did it for him.

And now, I can resume my normal life with everyday worries. You know - what we’re having for dinner, antibiotic immunities, Ebola viruses, rabies and common stuff like that.