I appreciate what you say, but, even though Fran was ill for a long time we did not think her time was so limited, but unlike you there was no mention of hospital as a long term possibilty and we were very well served by the health service at home. The only drawback was that my own self imposed limits on her being alone no more than 2 hours meant that any journeys I was asked to undertake made for careful arrangements between the frequent health visits and, of course, it brought an end to my long distance travels. Thankfully she died in her sleep in hospital after being taken there in the evening, but that meant that it was unexpected to me and a source of some sorrow.
From t.t.t I think about this. I am entirely alone. I have no relatives whatsoever. No O.H. Nada.
The van [maybe camper] which I have recently bought with a 20% bung from a pal I have asked Mark Rimmer to reg from UK to FR in both our names, come the event of my snuffism.
That’s it.
I think that any of my friends to whom I might bequeath stuff would find themselves involved with ‘docamenti’ far more tedious than worthwhile.
As Seasick Steve sings,
“I started out with nothin” [Not true]
I still got most of it left" [true]
My OH was same age and passed the year before your wife. I had to make the decision to have life support terminated after being shown scans of his brain that there was nothing there, we then had to start the organ donation process that we knew he wanted as we all carry cards and then seeing him in ITU brain dead but still alive through artificial means to keep the organs going until finally at 10pm he was taken to theatre for the retrieval and his heart taken by a pompier friend of ours to the local airfield for a mercy dash to the south of France for a recipient (he could not tell me about this for a few years as it upset him so much knowing who the donor was). In all, OH helped a lot of people with as much as the retrieval team could harvest and we were told later that he had in fact been very healthy and if that stroke had not happened, would probably have lived to a good old age. Organ donation helped me and the children greatly knowing that he did not die for nothing and I would not hesitate donation knowing the good it does.
Lovely story Shiba.
A good friend of mine , a lady in her early 80s has been awaiting a kidney transplant in the UK for five years. We all believed her chances of a new kidney were almost zéro because of her age but hubby phoned two days ago to say that she been operated on in Newcastle and is recovering well.
I hope my organes, if of any use to anyone will be used to help the maximum number of people.
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Organ donation and transplants are wonderful things. This is a post from my oldest friend on Facebook recently.
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As we all said, what good are your organs to you if you have died? You never know if yourself or one of your nearest and dearest might need something done and that without people being selfish, the chances of survival were very limited. The organ transplant team were very good to us, sat us down and explained every detail and gave us contacts to find out how the recipients were doing but obviously no names or locations, just general updates. I appologise in advance for this remark if it offends some people,but, I just do not understand people who refuse donation through religious beliefs and then go and have the deceased cremated! Its not like they are going to need anything anymore.
I am not offended in the least, it never occurred to me at the time as it was so unexpected and I had lots of other stuff on my mind when it happened.
I might look into it for me though.
Cremation wasn’t an option, Fran had always made that clear, and I went along with that and promised to be there with her eventually.
In France you are assumed to have consented to organ donation unless you expressly forbid this. But I don’t think all hospitals are set up to routinely collect organs. .
Afterwards you can cremate all the rest if you wish.
Yes, cremation is a personal choice and OH did not want to languish in a caveaux. We got our donation cards when ADOT were doing a stand in the local Super U many years ago and have carried them ever since. You can probably find it online if you want to get registered and carry a card.
Do they put you back ogether again on the outside after the harvest? For someone who does not believe in an after life, I am a bit silly about rejoining my lady in an acceptable form. 
Also, do they tell the next of kin if there has been a harvest? If so, then Fran must be still intact.
Yes, the corpse is treated with dignity just like any other operation although obviously no anaesthesie needed but the body is not mutilated. All families are notified about donation and if they wish to continue. Imagine if they just helped themselves and there was an exhumation done and the body found to be missing bits and pieces, all hell would break loose so that is why permission is asked for.
Thank you, I’ll have a look into it, don’t really want yet more stuff to carry round with me though, but I suppose I could leave it clipped with all the other stuff in the Death file for Marie-Paule to sort out when the time comes. 
But if it is legal to grab whatever they want unless there is a specific refusal, what’s the point of carrying it anyway?
That’s an excellent idea!
I intend to buy a few of these (one for each executor, one for the car and another for the house):
Laser Engraved USB Flash Drive
Just wondering whether these is some way of password protecting these USB drives?
Still on the theme of the original post, I found that organising the order of service for my mother and all of the other funeral details took a fair bit of time and numerous phone calls to relatives to reach a consensus. My wife and I have now both drafted our order of service and documented all the other funeral options that we’d prefer.
On Windows you can use BitLocker and on Mac FileVault to encrypt the contents of a USB stick.
But whether that’s an extra layer of complication that you want your heirs to have to deal with is up to you - they would have to know how to unlock the encryption and have the recovery key stored somewhere safe and accessible.
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Over the years a number of our more elderly members have ceased to post and I’ve wondered why.
It’s a small thing, but if someone has been a regular contributor to a forum right to the end I think it would be a nice gesture for whoever is dealing with the estate just to let the forum know that the member has died.
What a brilliant idea, and I can think of one such who used to be a really vigorous and persistant voice here and I haven’t heard from him for ages, Geoff.
I am hoping against hope that he simply got fed up with us, but I do have a sadder explanation too.
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Having plans in place for dealing with one’s electronic life more generally is important. Forum’s, subscriptions, online accounts, instagram, etc etc. Useful to leave instructions,
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You’ll b pleased to learn that at the time Geoff Cox said he was taking a rest from SF
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Thank you Karen, good to know, but I wonder why. Hope he is still ok.