Preparing for End of Life for Dummies
By Virginia Chang, PhD
Virginia Chang, PhD, is an INELDA-certified end-of-life doula, educator, and writer. She supports the dying and their loved ones to approach dying in a positive, meaningful, and affirming way. She teaches at the University of Vermont with the End-of-Life Doula Professional Certificate program. She has written extensively on death, mortality, and doula care. In Preparing for the End of Life for Dummies, Virginia offers a positive and meaningful approach to end-of-life planning that helps readers make the most of the time they and their loved ones are granted. She walks readers through specific actions and decisions they can take to arrange for the selection of a health care team, organize and make choices about funeral and burial options, and ensure they have the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual support they need.
Excerpt
I Will Die
I will die. Yup, that statement sums it up.
How do you feel when you say this? I will die. This statement is a basic truth, yet understanding how you feel about it can key you in as to how you feel about death. It’s a good idea to understand your relationship with death and dying. And if you’re saying to yourself, “What relationship?” Well then … now you know something too.
I will die. Do you accept this? Do you truly accept that it will happen to you? If so, that’s good. Acceptance is the first step to understanding death and dying. Where does the understanding of the truth of this statement lie for you? Does it reside in your head? If so, you accept death as intellectual knowledge. It exists like a fact. It’s like knowing about atomic fusion or traveling to the moon. You know of these things, that they are possible, but they don’t affect you. Similarly, you know that you will die, but you probably never think about it.
I will die. Does this truth reside in your heart? Instead of residing in your mind, you feel the truth of this statement in your body or in your emotions. Do you worry about dying? Do you fear what it will be like when it is your time? Or do you think about death a lot but not know what to do with all the feelings it generates? Just tuning in to how you feel when you realize I will die helps you identify the nature of your relationship with death. By understanding your feelings about death, you will know what to work on to prepare for end of life.
Say you have some relationship with the concepts of death and dying and accept the statement, I will die. The next question is this: Do you live by this truth? As human beings, we all hold on to some principles, ideals, or basic truths that we use to guide our life and live by. Do you live with the realization of I will die and allow it to guide your life?
For example, honesty may be a truth that you try to live by. You try to always tell the truth and never lie. You use honesty in your relationships with others and hope that they respect you back with honesty too. For you, it is one way to stay true to yourself. Or maybe you live with equity as a guiding principle. You make decisions and view life through a lens of being fair and just. You create allies and fight against injustice. You work hard to live in an equitable world. Honesty and equity are just two examples of qualities that can be used as guiding principles for living.
You can use the truth I will die to also guide your life. Understanding this truth in your heart and mind will do much for how you view the world and live life. You see how precious life is. How fleeting it is! You appreciate more and more what you have and what is around you. To realize and live by this truth changes how you make decisions, how you spend your money, and who you love.
Historically, people were more aware of this truth. They lived by it because the threats of death lurked everywhere. But now, we actually live in a safer society, and medicine is able to treat and cure so many ailments that once would have been fatal. While the causes of death are still numerous and threatening, we are not aware of them as much as we once were and have removed them from our daily consciousness.
Well, now, you have an opportunity to make a conscious choice to live by the truth of I will die. To choose to face your own mortality and let it affect how you live. To choose to embrace death.
Excerpted with permission from the publisher, Wiley, from Preparing for End of Life for Dummies by Virginia Chang, PhD. Copyright © 2026 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. This book is available wherever books and e-books are sold.
Posted 1/14/2026