My story starts with a vasectomy.
I know, that’s not your typical way to find a cancer diagnosis, but I don’t like to do anything boring 🙂
I went in for a vasectomy and the doctor told me to go to the ER if I experience unusual pain. That night I did experience a crazy amount of pain, so I went in to get checked.
They scanned me to see what was going on, and the doctor came back with the results.
I’ll never forget his words. “You are presenting to us as having lymphoma, we want to run more tests.”
I remember thinking to myself, “What’s Lymphoma? Is that bad…oh crap, that’s cancer.”
That started a journey for me. A journey that led to Last Word Letters.
Do you know how they say that when you’re about to die you see your life flash before your eyes? That’s not how it happened to me. What flashed in my mind were all the moments I was about to miss.
I was just turning 40 and I had two young boys and a beautiful wife. Our family was just hitting its stride, and now I was about to miss everything.
It was all too much, so I reached out to my mentor and asked a favor. He agreed and asked how he could help. “I need you to help me to prepare to die.”
What a strange request.
But the thing that kept haunting me was that I knew I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t even considered it until then.
My mentor agreed to help, and we got started.
We discussed what I believed about the afterlife, we discussed wills and life insurance, and he had me create a document of passwords and funeral arrangements to give to my wife.
He said, “Let’s do everything possible to relieve stress from your loved ones who will be handling arrangements.”
I remember feeling such a strange peace come over me when all of that stuff was taken care of and in order.
Then he made one more suggestion. “If you want, you can write letters to your family for them to have to read after you’re gone.”
That sounds like such a good idea, but when I sat down with a pad and paper I went blank. There’s so much that I wanted to say that my brain just froze. It wasn’t easy but I threw something together.
I remember thanking my mentor and saying, “This sounds like it came from a Braveheart movie, but now that I’m prepared to die, I feel free to live.”
He responded by saying, “Jeremy, what you have just done, everyone should do. We all should prepare to die. The only difference between you and anyone else is that your time might be coming sooner.”
That stuck with me.
That all happened 7 years ago. I’m so grateful to say that I’ve been in remission and I have had a chance to live.
But I haven’t stopped thinking about the freedom that comes when we are prepared.
That’s why we created Last Word Letters. We want you to experience the peace that comes with knowing that you can speak into the moments you could miss in your loved ones’ lives.
We hope that this tool makes the process much easier and helps you create literal treasures that your family will cherish after you’re gone.
I’ve always thought it’s so dumb that all we do to prepare for death is make a will and decide who gets our stuff. It should be more than that.
Leaving a real legacy is about sharing our hearts.
Last Word Letters helps you do that.
Enjoy writing your letters,
Jeremy
Co-founder of Last Word Letters
