Iavoided talking about my life’s last act for a long time. Most of us do. It isn’t a pleasant subject to discuss whether we believe we are eventually headed for a better after life or just a short trip to a cold grave.

One of the 1st insurance policies I sold was to one of my father’s employees. I was young and trying to figure out if sales was my calling. She was a young single mom who bought it to cover her funeral costs.

I was 18 years old. Funerals were for other people. But I felt admiration for her. She did not want her children to have to pay to see her properly put away.

Avoiding even thinking about the last act is a mistake. If we think about our own mortality, we may live better lives and experience better deaths than if we don’t.

That’s a conclusion Katy Butler comes to in her new book, “The Art of Dying Well.”

We will be talking about this and other concerns about aging and retirement in my Shepherd’s Center class next month.

According to the Kaiser Foundation, 7 in 10 Americans hope to die at home. But half die in nursing homes and hospitals. More than a 10th are cruelly shuttled from one to the other in their final days.

Nearly half of dying Americans suffer from uncontrolled pain. Nobody I know hopes to die in the confines of an Intensive Care Unit. Yet more than a quarter of Medicare members go through one in their final month, and a 5th die in an ICU.

In his last year of life, Ed Walski had Parkinson’s disease and dementia. He was shuttled 9 times between assisted living and hospitals and nursing homes.

“The first few times I’d say, OK, we got him through this, and now he’s going to get rehab and be back where he was,” said his daughter Karen. “But he never came back. It was a stair step down to the basement.”

Despite a devoted daughter, Walski’s dying was more painful than it needed to be.

Katy Butler spent 3 years interviewing hundreds of people who have witnessed good deaths and hard ones. She consulted top experts in end-of-life medicine and learned how to prepare for a good end of life.

1. Have a vision. Some doctors assume that we want to extend life until there is no joy left. They’re mistaken.

The Kaiser study found most people cared much more about not having their families financially burdened or distressed by tough medical decisions, having their medical preferences honored and dying with their loved ones around them. Living as long as possible was last on most lists.

2. Think whom you need to thank or forgive? Do you want to die under the stars or listening to a special piece of music?

3. Be clear long before that final 911 call on what gives your life joy and meaning. When you can no longer enjoy those things, what medical treatments will you refuse? Nobody can answer this for you.

4. Talk to those you love about what life means to you and put it in writing.

5. Appoint someone with people skills and a backbone to speak for you if you can no longer speak for yourself.

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