Leaving Lightly

Book excerpt: Many people know they need to "get their affairs in order," but few know what that means, much less how to do it. "Leaving Lightly: Getting Your Affairs in Order So All You Leave Behind is Love" is a simple yet comprehensive guide for creating a process to put your affairs in order. The book concentrates on four subject areas: recording personal and financial information, creating health care and legal documents, deciding postmortem care, and digitally recording personal stories and family history. The book travels lightly and, where appropriate, humorously through often scary terrain. Interspersed throughout the book are anecdotes of people who planned ahead and people who didn't, and the effect these actions had on those they loved. Because of the many options available in end-of-life and postmortem care, the knowledge contained in Leaving Lightly will assist you in becoming a savvy consumer, potentially saving hundreds or thousands of dollars. But perhaps one of the greatest gifts of Leaving Lightly is peace of mind for the person charged with cleaning up your affairs. Armed with the knowledge of what you do and do not want in your end of life care, your Clean Up Person will be able to quickly and efficiently carry out your wishes. Making sure that information is decided and recorded before it is needed is the purpose behind Leaving Lightly.