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Comment by sys32768 | Hacker News Reader

Most people who die won't have a chance to say goodbye.

If you have children, I encourage you assemble an "oops, I died" kit for them, not just with legal papers, but with long goodbye letters. If they're younger, make a letter for now and a letter for when they are adults.

I also made letters for important people in my life so that my survivors can hand them out to them.

I try to update these once a year accompanied by a good bottle of wine. I have updated my ex-wife's letter several times. It gets shorter every year.

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I've been trying to record a short video every year for my wife, should I pass. I read somewhere that hearing a voice is the hardest thing to remember over time. I keep them in a folder on my desktop called "In the event of my untimely demise" along with what bills need paid, who online needs to know I passed, how to get into my password manager, and approximate values of my hobby stuff.

Why wait until you’re dead to tell your loved ones important messages? Why not say it to them in person when you’re alive?

"yes and..."

It can be great to have something physical and re-readable from your loved ones that have passed on.

> I try to update these once a year accompanied by a good bottle of wine. I have updated my ex-wife's letter several times. It gets shorter every year.

The letter or the amount of wine in the bottle?

This App is designed exactly to create videos for loved ones based on what people have said they wanted to know about deceased parents.

: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/recordmenow/id987986634

“The questions have been selected from 5 years of research into what people, whose parents died when young, wished that they had known. Use them as a springboard. You can select the questions you want to answer and/or add your own. Answer what you like, in the order you like. Ignore the questions you don’t like. Come back to others.”

https://www.deadmansswitch.net/

"Do you realize

That everyone you know someday will die?

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes

Let them know you realize that life goes fast

It's hard to make the good things last

You realize the sun doesn't go down

It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round"

-"Do You Realize?" by The Flaming Lips

I suppose we all find ways to cope with mortality as much as we can, but I've become much less sentimental in this way as I've aged; I just try to hold on to less and less and enjoy the moments as I can.

Transmitting lessons learned, hopes and memories isn't for you, the now dead person, it's for your children. It's to strengthen them and hopefully guide them.

Yes, but surely you're doing that as you go through life rather than saving it all up for after your death.

If your children are young and you're worried about an untimely death, then it makes sense. I wrote books for my children for just this reason (but I also gave them the books while they were still young).

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