How to Write Heartfelt Messages Now for Your Children to Read in the Future

While most people agree that end-of-life planning is essential, not everyone actually completes this process. According to a survey by the California Health Care Foundation, 60% of people don’t want their family members to face the burden of difficult decisions after they die, but 56% of people have not expressed their end-of-life wishes.

Even if you have made an effort to prepare for your death, there are still plenty of important steps that people can easily overlook. For example, you may think your end-of-life plan begins and ends with your last will, but that’s not the case. There are many other important details, including messages and directives for the people you care about. 

Of course, these messages are valuable not just for personal reasons—they can communicate critical information that helps your beneficiaries understand why and how you’ve made decisions surrounding your estate. They may also provide insightful financial advice, deliver guidance and mentoring, or even reveal long-kept family secrets. Regardless of the content, here’s how to prepare and store these heartfelt messages so your presence will continue to be felt by your children long after your passing. 

Why Should You Write Messages Now?

Whether it’s Facebook or Instagram profiles, email archives, or other online records and resources, our digital afterlives extend long past our temporal deaths. All of our remaining content preserves a part of our digital legacy for posterity, and online life planning platforms like The Postage are making it possible to actively preserve what we think matters most. 

If you’re still relatively young, end-of-life planning may be the last thing on your mind—but that doesn’t mean you should avoid this process indefinitely. Especially if you have children, basic protections like life insurance policies and a last will are crucial documents that will help provide security and continuity in the event of an accident or illness. 

There are also many things that go unsaid for a variety of reasons, and preserving these thoughts today ensures that you won’t need to worry if the right time doesn’t arise before your passing. By preparing postmortem messages right now instead of putting this task off until later in life, you can:

Enjoy Peace of Mind

Death is a hard topic for most people to think about, but it’s also an inevitability you need to prepare for. Though end-of-life planning can be emotionally challenging at times, this process can also give you the peace of mind that comes with knowing your affairs are in order (both legally and emotionally).

Capture Memories for the Future

The sooner you start writing about your life, the more details you’ll remember—and the more effectively you’ll be able to capture crucial memories. Of course, this mindset doesn’t just apply to major life events. Writing messages about your daily routine can give your children and other loved ones a valuable glimpse into the past.

Make Changes Later On

If you write messages immediately before your passing, you won’t have much time to edit them. On the other hand, writing messages now will give you the chance to update them throughout your life. That way, you’ll have no trouble saying what you want to say (or even scrapping a message and starting over).

Preserve Your Developing Experience

By recording and storing messages as you go along, you will also give your beneficiaries valuable perspective on how your life unfolded and why you made the choices you did. No matter how well we stay in touch, there are inevitable questions and gaps in our understanding of our loved ones. This content can help them understand you as a whole person, not just a selection of memories. 

Get Inspiration for Messages to Your Children

The idea of preserving our thoughts can seem daunting, especially when we have so much to say and a limited amount of time to pick and choose. Fortunately, there are some natural starting places that might provide you with some inspiration. While writing messages that will be delivered to your loved ones after your passing, you might want to:

• Share favorite photos and videos
• Preserve family stories for posterity
• Pass down beloved family recipes
• Let them hear your voice again with a voicemail
• Simply express your love and support

These may seem basic or simple, but believe it or not, these details can speak volumes to your beneficiaries about the person you were. Anecdotes, images, and thoughts are often incredibly rewarding possessions for your family because they might otherwise be lost forever. 

Storing and Delivering Postmortem Messages

Once you’ve taken time to write or record messages for your children to read after your death, there’s one other issue you’ll need to address—namely, making sure your messages get delivered when they should. Since you won’t be able to oversee this process yourself, you’ll need to find a platform you can trust to get these messages to their intended recipients.

With that in mind, your platform of choice should give you the security and flexibility to organize the following details. 

Message Storage

If you’ve ever spent much time dealing with physical documents, you know how easy it can be to misplace a vital form or file. That’s never a good situation to find yourself in, but losing an irreplaceable message to your children would be particularly devastating.

Because of that, you shouldn’t rely on physical copies whenever possible. Instead, you’ll want to find an end-of-life planning platform that can keep them in a data-encrypted “digital vault,” ensuring they’ll be there for the people you care about when the time comes.

Message Delivery

After you die, your end-of-life planning platform will need to take the next step for you by distributing your messages to their intended recipients. When your designated delegate lets this platform know you’ve passed on, it will begin sharing messages as you intended.

Depending on your wishes, your platform of choice might not send some of your messages right away. Instead, you can schedule messages for events and milestones like:

• Birthdays
• Holidays
• Anniversaries
• Weddings
• Graduations
• Births

What Else Should Your End-of-Life Plan Include?

In addition to personal messages, there are also some practical and logistical details worth including as well. These can come in the form of intentions for specific assets, directives for distribution, and a host of other information, including:

• Planning your funeral. By picking a venue, speakers, pallbearers, and more for your funeral (and setting aside funds for this event), you can make life easier for your grieving friends and loved ones.
• Preparing a last will. This document will make sure your assets get distributed according to your wishes.
• Getting other documents ready. In addition to your last will, you’ll want to prepare an advanced directive and ethical will while building your end-of-life plan.
• Knowing where to store documents. The digital vault you’re using for messages and memories can also help you protect the documents listed in this section.

Share Messages That Matter With The Postage

Whether you’ve already written messages to your children or need help getting started with this process, The Postage can help you organize, secure, and schedule them. Our platform comes with powerful features designed to simplify the end-of-life planning process, including:

• Message scheduling
• The ability to update submitted messages
• Support for photos, videos, and voicemails
• Guidance on what to say in your messages

The Postage’s platform also helps people prepare fully legal wills, digitally store documents, and complete other crucial steps in the end-of-life planning process. If you’re ready to get started, write your first messages today!