It's never too soon to prepare an advance health care directive -- also called a power of attorney for health care, living will, or other similar name. Anyone could have an accident or sudden, unforeseen medical crisis at any time. But a bonus to preparing your own advance health care directive is that you can use your document as an icebreaker for a conversation with your parent about drawing up his directive. And your document can serve as an example on which your parent can model his own. While it's not easy to get your parent thinking about the prospect of incapacitation and the dying process, he needs to consider difficult subjects like artificial life-prolonging treatment and who he wants to be making decisions for him at the end of life. Telling your parent about your own plans may help to get the process moving.