Time Travel.

As a pre-planning advisor, i help people who want to make final arrangements in advance. I sometimes describe this role as a “Time Travel Agent”.

There are three windows where final arrangements can be made:

1 – Pre-Planning: no urgency, no pressure, no crisis
2 – Near Need: a diagnosis, declining health, an imminent loss
3 – At-Need: a death has occurred

If i could actually send people back in time — those planning in windows 2 and 3 — here’s where i’d send them:

To a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
Before the diagnosis.
Before the crisis.
Before the phone calls.

Because that’s when the conversation is calmer. Rational. Loving.

When we sit down together to pre-plan, we actually take the moment when loved ones sit with a funeral director making decisions after a death has occurred – we pull that discussion back in time to today so that we can navigate the decisions before a crisis occurs.

Preplanning isn’t about death.
It’s about protecting the people you love from making hard decisions in their hardest moment.

I understand why people avoid it.
There are a lot of decisions.
The options can feel overwhelming.
You may worry about cost.
You may worry about being pressured.
You may worry your identity won’t be welcomed or respected.
You may simply not want to talk about death at all.

Having the conversation today is hard.
It will be harder tomorrow.

Six years into this profession, i remain deeply grateful to serve as a pre-planning advisor with Dignity Memorial — a respected and trusted provider i confidently entrust with the families who place their trust in me.