End-of-Life Wishes & The Letter

The non-legal companion to your advance directive: your values, wishes, the letter, what your family needs to know. Much of this is free; the most-used standardized form is Five Wishes. The single most useful artifact you'll ever write is the letter — short, updated annually, kept in your vault. For the legal forms see Power of Attorney & Advance Directives; for funeral preferences see Funeral Planning & Pre-Need; for digital-account inventory see Digital Legacy & Vault Apps; for cultural framing see Death-Positive Resources; for the broader index see Estate, Will & End-of-Life Planning.

Standardized wishes / advance-care planning forms

• ★ Five Wishes — paid (~$5 print, free digital in some states); the most-used standardized advance-care document in the US; legally valid in 42+ states; combines healthcare-directive content with personal / spiritual / family wishes.
• ★ Stanford Letter Project Letter — free; values + wishes letter; complements (does not replace) your legal advance directive.
• ★ Honoring Choices Pacific Northwest — free; PNW-flavored; great workbooks.
• ★ PREPARE for Your Care — free; UCSF interactive walkthrough; videos in English / Spanish.
• ★ The Conversation Project (IHI) — free; conversation-starter workbook designed for kitchen-table discussions.
• Hello Death — free; Australia-flavored; well-designed.
• Cake — free + paid; integrates wishes with funeral / final-arrangements docs.

"The letter" — the highest-value artifact

The single most useful thing you'll never get prompted to write: a letter to your family / executor explaining where everything is, what you want them to know, and what your wishes are.

Sections that matter:

• Where to find things — vault password / recovery, vital docs location, will original location, safe combo, trusted attorney / advisor names + numbers.
• Account access path — see Digital Legacy & Vault Apps — Apple Legacy, Google Inactive, Bitwarden Emergency Access status.
• Financial summary — list of accounts (no passwords in the letter — pointer to vault), advisors, accountant, recurring bills, subscriptions to cancel.
• Beneficiary status — last audit date; pointer to forms in Beneficiary Designations.
• People to call — family + close friends + pastor / community + employer.
• Funeral / disposition wishes — see Funeral Planning & Pre-Need; brief, not a directive.
• What you'd like said / sung / read — at any service.
• Personal messages — short notes to spouse, kids, parents, friends. The hardest part. Worth doing anyway.
• What to do with your stuff — sentimental items, who gets what.
• What you want them to remember — values, lessons, gratitude.

★ Update annually. Date the bottom. Keep it in your vault. Tell at least one person it exists and where.

Self-host vault for the letter (★ free path)

• Joplin / Obsidian / Logseq — free OSS notes apps; family-shared vault with the letter + account inventory + wishes.
• Notion / Coda — paid + free; if your household already lives there.
• Encrypted markdown in gopass / pass — free OSS; for the most sensitive variant.
• Paperless-ngx — free OSS; scan a printed signed copy as a backup.

Sentence-stem starters (when you don't know what to write)

• "If you're reading this, …"
• "The most important thing I want you to know is …"
• "I'd like you to remember …"
• "If I can't speak for myself, please …"
• "I forgive ___ for …"
• "I'm sorry about …"
• "I'm proud of you for …"
• "I want my final days to be …"
• "Please don't …"
• "Please do …"

Conversations to have (★)

The Conversation Project's data: 90% of Americans say it's important to talk about end-of-life wishes; 27% have actually done it. The conversation is the work — the form is just paperwork.

• With your spouse / partner — annually.
• With your healthcare proxy — at appointment.
• With adult children — once your forms are signed.
• With aging parents — uncomfortable, necessary, ideally before crisis.

License / pricing

• Stanford Letter, Honoring Choices PNW, PREPARE, The Conversation Project, Hello Death: free.
• Five Wishes: paid (~$5) or free in some states.
• Cake: free + paid.
• Joplin, Obsidian, Logseq, gopass, Paperless-ngx: free OSS.
• Notion, Coda: free + paid.

Pick this if…

• Default free path: Stanford Letter Project + a state-AG advance-directive form + a markdown letter in your vault.
• One polished standardized form: Five Wishes.
• Want a guided walkthrough: PREPARE for Your Care.
• Need conversation starters: The Conversation Project.
• All-in-one with funeral wishes: Cake.
• OSS / self-host purist: Joplin family vault + gopass for the most sensitive bits.
• Haven't written the letter yet: start tonight; one page is enough.