Behind the Puddle

Two years ago today, I posted a certificate on Facebook with a very simple caption:

“Sleepless nights lead to online classes completed.”

It was August 8, 2024, and I had completed the Five Wishes Advance Care Planning Facilitator Foundations course.

At the time, it felt important. Official, maybe.

It was a step toward something I already knew mattered deeply to me, although I don’t think I understood yet what I was actually stepping into.

Looking at that certificate today, I cannot express how much I have learned since then.

And strangely enough, much of the most important learning didn’t happen in another class.

It happened behind the puddle.

Two Years Ago, I Was Learning How

When I completed that course, I was learning how to facilitate advance care planning conversations.

There were documents to understand. Questions to ask. Decisions people needed to consider. There was language around healthcare agents, wishes, values, comfort and the things someone might want if they couldn’t speak for themselves.

All of that matters.

It still matters.

But somewhere along the way, I began understanding that the document isn’t really where the work happens.

The work happens between people.

It happens when someone says, “I’ve never thought about that before.”

It happens when a family member tells a story that suddenly explains why something matters.

It happens in the silence after a difficult question.

It happens when someone realizes they don’t have to know exactly what medical treatment they would want in every imaginable circumstance, they can begin by knowing themselves.

What matters to me?

What makes life feel like mine?

Who do I trust?

What am I afraid of?

What brings me comfort?

What would I want the people who love me to understand?

Those questions changed the way I understood advance directives.

And eventually, they changed the way I understood planning altogether.

Then Came the Puddle

I certainly didn’t expect a patio and a shallow little body of water behind our house to influence the way I think about advance directive planning.

But here we are.

Sitting behind the puddle has taught me things I don’t remember encountering in a facilitator course.

It has taught me to notice before speaking.

To be curious without needing an answer.

To witness something without needing to change it.

To understand that silence isn’t necessarily empty.

To recognize that the same place, or the same person, can look completely different depending upon the day.

I’ve watched our herons look majestic one morning and completely ridiculous the next.

I’ve learned that not every neighbor wants to be known from a turtle who prefers to keep her distance.

I’ve watched young geese slowly wander farther from their parents.

I’ve watched birds carry away feathers another animal no longer needed.

I’ve watched creatures arrive, disappear and return.

And somewhere in all of that watching, I became better at understanding people, too.

Not because people are geese or herons or turtles.

But because attention changes what we are able to see.

Maybe Planning Forward Starts With Paying Attention

The longer I do this work, the less interested I am in helping someone simply complete an advance directive.

I want to help people understand what they are trying to communicate through one.

There is a difference.

An advance directive can tell someone what decisions you made.

A meaningful conversation can help them understand why.

That distinction has become increasingly important to me.

It is also part of why I have begun thinking about advance directives much more broadly.

Advance means future.

Directive means instruction.

Healthcare is certainly part of our future planning, but being human asks us to prepare for many other changes too.

We plan for births.

Weddings.

Graduations.

Vacations.

Retirement.

Moves.

Celebrations.

And yet some of life’s most predictable transitions are the ones we struggle to talk about.

Illness.

Changing abilities.

Caregiving.

Loss.

Aging.

Dying.

What happens to the people, animals, possessions, routines and responsibilities that make up our lives when we can no longer manage them exactly as we do today?

Those conversations don’t have to begin with fear.

They can begin with curiosity.

From Facilitating to Accompanying

Perhaps this is the biggest change I see when I look at that certificate today.

Two years ago, I wanted to become a good facilitator.

Today, I think I want to become a good conversation companion.

Someone willing to sit beside another person while they figure out what matters.

Someone who doesn’t need to have every answer.

Someone comfortable enough with silence to allow another person to find their own words.

Someone who understands that completing the paperwork may be important, but understanding the person completing it is even more important.

That philosophy has slowly become what I call Planning Forward, a human-centered, values-based way of approaching the conversations we have about our future.

And even that continues to evolve.

Because I continue to evolve.

The Certificate Was Never the Destination

There is another reason this memory feels particularly meaningful today.

Two years after completing a course that taught me how to help facilitate advance care planning, I am sitting here working on something very different:

A guide for people who want to explore Planning Forward themselves.

Not because everyone needs to become a facilitator.

Quite the opposite.

Because these conversations belong to all of us.

You shouldn’t need a certification to ask your mother what matters to her.

You shouldn’t need a medical degree to tell your spouse what you’re afraid of.

You shouldn’t need to understand every possible healthcare scenario before telling your children what makes life meaningful to you.

Sometimes we simply need permission to begin talking.

Two years ago, that certificate gave me permission to begin.

I thought I was learning how to help people complete advance directives.

I couldn’t have known where that first step would lead.

Through conversations.

Through grief.

Through stories.

Through silence.

Through waypoints.

And, unexpectedly, through a summer spent sitting behind a puddle.

I have learned an enormous amount since August 8, 2024.

But perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is this:

The document matters.
The decisions matter.
The planning matters.

But the person matters most.

Maybe that is what I was walking toward all along.

The certificate was never the destination.

It was simply the first waypoint.