How to Choose a Health Care Surrogate in Florida (And Why the Form Is the Easy Part)

The clocks turn back next weekend. The dark will start arriving before dinner. The year is nearly spent.

Florida does fall quietly. No citrine and ruby leaves to peep at. No sweaters yet. But the mornings are more dry, the windows are open for the first time since April, and the light at four in the afternoon is doing something it wasn’t doing in August.

Last month I wrote about asking one question before the holidays arrive. One real question, on an ordinary day, with no audience and nothing riding on it. I offered a few ways in, including the easiest one — the one that works because it makes you the subject instead of them.

I’m getting my own paperwork in order. Have you ever done yours?

I’ve been thinking about that sentence all month. It’s a good way in. It’s also just a good idea.

In my work as an end-of-life doula, I’ve watched what happens when an adult child does their own planning first. The conversation afterward is a different conversation. You’re not arriving with a task for your Mom. You’re telling her something about your own life.

So here’s the small thing I’d offer as the year turns down: name your health care surrogate.

This is the document that says who speaks for you when you can’t speak for yourself. In Florida, the form doesn’t require a lawyer, and the mechanics are simple — two witnesses, at least one of whom isn’t your spouse or a blood relative, and the person you’re naming can’t be one of them.

The form is the easy part.

The choosing is not. Most people assume it’s the oldest, or the closest, or the one who would be insulted if you picked someone else. But this isn't an honor. It's a job.

You want the person who can sit in a hospital room, hear a doctor lay out options, and say what you would have said. Even when the rest of the family wants something different. Even when they want something different.

A living will is the other half of this — what kind of medical care you want or do not want if you become unable to make your own decisions. There’s more to say about that one — what the forms do and don’t ask you, and which ones are worth your time — than fits here, so I’ll take it up on its own soon.

For now: name your surrogate. Tell them. Then put the paperwork somewhere it can be found — not the safe deposit box, because the bank is closed at 2 a.m., which is when somebody might need it. Your surrogate gets a copy. Your doctor’s office gets one for your chart. One stays home where a person could find it without a scavenger hunt.

A document nobody can find is a document that doesn’t exist.

And here’s what you’ll have when it’s done, in addition to your own completed document. Something true to say to your parent(s).

I did mine.

That isn’t a request, or a form slid across a table, or a conversation your Dad can feel coming from two rooms away. It’s something true about your own life, said out loud. In my experience, that’s the opening that can work.

This is work I do with families, either for their own planning or as a third person in the room when the conversation needs one.

And if any of this stirs something that’s harder to carry alone, you’re welcome at Grief Circle, held monthly on Zoom. There’s no script and no requirement to share. Come for someone you lost last week, or someone you lost twenty years ago. All of it belongs.

The clocks turn back whether or not anyone is ready. The dark will come earlier. The holidays will arrive on schedule.

Not much of that is up to you.

Who speaks for you is.