Kathryn Perks
Kathryn Perks explains what prompted her to write a guide to putting our affairs in order before we die.
During our lifetime we seldom consider preparing for our death or what will happen to our possessions when that time comes, or more importantly who might be given the unenviable task of trying to make sense of all that we leave behind. Often our siblings or children live in different cities or countries and we put off discussing with them what we know we should. It just never seems to be the right time and for some of us it can be a sensitive topic to raise, even with those closest to us. It is however usually our family members who are faced with this responsibility and are expected to step in.
Loss is like a current. Like fish, we respond with instinctive movement, ending up where we’re going but not, perhaps, where we intended. For some writers, the waterfall propulsion of grief channels, over time, into extraordinary work. Here are some books eloquent on loss, but greater than that, they reveal nature, character and a profound sense of being in the world, being part of it.
Three years ago my partner asked me to deliver a gift to Carolyn, a friend of hers who was a patient at the 
Most of us experience the death of a parent or grandparent and the loss of the past it brings. The death of an elderly family member, however, does not threaten the family’s reason to exist, and its future hopes and dreams remain. The death of a child, however, brings with it the death of part of the parents, and the psychological death of the family. In bereavement literature there is agreement that the death of a child is almost beyond the parents’ endurance. The parent-child bond is arguably the strongest bond there is. The concept of the child as an integral part of the parent’s self is logical in that the survival of the child depends on altruistic parenting. If mother and baby did not become strongly attached the baby would die. The purpose of attachment, therefore, is the survival of the species. Thus, parenthood is deeply challenged by the death of a child.
