It’s funny how differently people face the inevitable. A former classmate of mine, now living in Northern California, has gone out of his way to avoid thinking about the end of his life. He’s planned for everything else, just not the end.

He doesn’t want to talk about a will — and in California that’s not a wise move when you’ve got a business and heirs. Even when I snuck him a California Life Insurance quote, he refused to purchase. It should go without saying that he had never darkened the door of a funeral home’s showroom.

But after a brush with death in a serious accident, he, who had been in the peak of health, had to be hospitalized for nearly two weeks and then more than a month in convalescence. He came out of that experience a different man in some ways. And I am relieved to report he now has a plan for the end of his life. Interestingly enough, he’s relieved, too.