May 17, 2024 • 23 mins
Dr. Kimberly Harms, the brilliant mind behind "Are You Ready? How to Build a Legacy to Die For" explores the art of living, loving, and preparing for life's final chapter.
Dr. Harms shares her personal story of love and sudden loss, guiding us through the meaningful quest of living while building a legacy for those we leave behind.
Ponder the nature of death, asking: “Is death a grim or gentle reaper?” Through fascinating research on near-death experiences and life beyond, Dr. Harms embraces a spectrum of beliefs and perspectives.
Learn ways to equip yourself with crucial tools to ensure your loved ones are emotionally prepared. From drafting wills and health care directives to writing heartfelt legacy and reconciliation letters, this episode serves as your guide to emotional life insurance.
What’s your legacy?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm 67 years old and at that age I've been through a lot in my life. As many people
(00:05):
who get older
have a lot going in their lives, a lot of loss. I lost my mother and my son to suicide,
and I lost my husband to a broken heart,
just to, I, I think because of the suicide death of my son. And
each of those losses, you lose part of your identity whenever you have a loss. So
I lost, you know, my identity as a daughter when my mother died. My identity as a
(00:27):
mother of a son when my son died, and my identity as a wife when my husband died.
So, from those experiences, I realized how death
has such a, an impact on the survivors on all of us.
when my husband died, my grandchildren in particular were
really affected ne negatively by his death. He missed their popup so much.
And I started to think, well, you know,
(00:47):
I'm next up to the plate. Hopefully I don't wanna lose any more children. So I wanna,
I wanna be next up to the plate. So I'm, I'm next up,
what can I do to help my children and my grandchildren survive and thrive
without me and their lives?
And I started doing some research and I ended up writing a book. Are You Ready? How
to build a Legacy to Die For,
to do just that, to help us think about the legacy that we're building with every
(01:08):
interaction we have with every person that we meet,
and to look at death and dying and not be afraid of it. I'm not afraid of death and
die. I'm not afraid to die.
And then also to look at what do we need to do to make sure that when we do go,
that our children are the best prepared that they can be
because of our efforts. So I've,
I have my legacy, a big legacy,
(01:29):
journal. I have a big,
binder that has everything in it, you know, titles of my car, you know, where you
know who sold the house, all the house details,
where all my bank statements are, where my retirement plan is, all of those things.
All of the passwords. I have the,
a binder that has all of that in there
so that when I die, my children know exactly where it is. When I die, they can go
(01:51):
pick out the binder and everything. They'll need to know everything they need to
cope with. My death afterwards is in that binder. And I'm, so, I'm encouraging people
to think about how we can make life easier for our survivors after we die,
right? Because we, or they are so busy grieving and so upset. And then to,
unfortunately, you have to go right into the business and the serious and make decisions
(02:16):
and not knowing where to do what to go, where to go, or what your wishes are,
or how to finance all of those wishes as well. So it's nice to have one packet ready
to go,
and even where to get the money, you know,
How do you get the hold of the money that, that you need to,
to finance a funeral or to, you know, you, you need to make sure that you leave your
children or whoever you want to leave
(02:36):
as the beneficiaries,
of your,
checking account so that,
when you die, you have to sign some papers, but so that when you die,
automatically these people will have access to your checking account or your, in
your savings account. So they'll have access to that, so then they can pay for the
things that need to take place after you die.
Right. So,
we're kind of jumping around and right into that, but with that, do you,
(02:57):
think it's best to have somebody on your account?
I guess it's kind of hard because people could die at any time, unless, unfortunately,
unless you're planning a suicide, you wouldn't know that. And so, like, younger people
might not, you don't want somebody on your bank account. But as you get older, you
know, like you put your children on there. But what about when you're younger? How
does that work? You just have the documents to state that it goes to somebody.
Yeah. There are documents you can sign in, in,
(03:20):
I think every bank that says that, when I die, this person will have access to my
account automatically. The idea of getting someone on your account gets a little
tricky, because one of the things you fight for when you're my age is your independence.
You know, you wanna be an independent, you don't wanna be a burden. You don't want
anyone else, you know, having to help you. You want to kind of take care of things
(03:40):
yourself. Now, of course, there might come a time when I can't
And then you give your power of attorney to somebody and you let them take care of
that. But so, but that's kind of a battle. And when you see, when you talk with,
people in their seventies and their eighties, most of them really wanna stay independent
as much as possible and not have someone else on their account. They wanna live their
lives, do their thing without feeling that their, their, their children have to get
(04:02):
too involved. Just kind of like when you were children in, your parents were too
involved. It's kind of the other way around it. Things turn around when you get older,
right. And yeah, it's, it's really kind of funny that way because in some ways my
kids take care of me. And a lot of, for instance, Easter's coming up
and,
you know, where do I go for Easter? I just wait to, for the kids to figure out where
I'm going, and I just go wherever, you know, wherever they tell me.
So there are certain things that my kids have taken over now, and that's good, but
(04:25):
the, and the checking account is one of those issues. You have to be careful and
com confident and comfortable to do that. But you can,
you can sign papers in a bank that will state that when you die, this person will
have access to your account. And that's a very important thing to do. So, planning
ahead and, and also when you have,
not only your life,
life insurance for people, but your savings accounts, your,
(04:45):
retirement funds, you need to make sure that the beneficiaries are clearly stated
on those accounts. That makes it so much easier,
for the, for your survivors to take care of all those things.
Yeah. So we, we had, I met you and,
I got a copy of your book
and I wrote your book
and it, and just the way timing is, it's like I just have to actually won it.
(05:05):
And
how, how later on things kind of make sense there. I was like, wow. So right after
that, so my mother-in-Law passed away kind of unexpectedly.
And I went through all this stuff
and I was like,
wow. And of course, I picked it up and kind of browsed through it a little bit at
that point. And then all of a sudden I'm like, wow. And so I
read it and it helped a lot.
Thank you. And it's like,
so you, and you never know when you're gonna need this information. And I really
(05:27):
like how, and you talked about just death and dying in the beginning. 'cause that's
the first thing you do, is you process it and the emotions and, and, and the sadness.
And you have to
go through that as well. Do you wanna explain how, like, the process of your book,
because then you go kind of, it was so perfect 'cause you went into that, and then
you went into
the paperwork and the stuff, and then how to prepare, how Now of course I'm preparing
(05:49):
my own stuff because I know what, what went well and what didn't, what I need to
do. And so you wrote it just perfectly in order. Thank you. So do you wanna explain
kind of how, how you did that and what the process was? Sure. And yeah, sure. Well,
it's, it's funny because I never thought, you know, I was a dentist and then I was
a speaker. And then as I'm getting older, you know, the three hours speaking,
engagements that you do if you're a clinical speaker, kind of getting a little tiring
(06:12):
for my voice. My voice was starting to give up. First. I thought, uhoh, I better,
you know, I gotta, what, what else can I do now? And,
so suddenly I just felt I, that, that this was a book people needed because we aren't
prepared. We live in a death denying culture. We don't prepare for death. In fact,
we do everything we can look at all the effort we make on keeping healthy, which
we need to continue to do. 'cause the longer we're healthy, the longer we can leave
a legacy. So we need to keep doing that. But to know that no matter how,
(06:35):
what, no matter how
good we've been on our diets and what, no matter what shape we're in, at some point,
we are still gonna die. So we still have to prepare for that. Even though we, we
take so many steps to prolong our life. We still need to understand that,
that it's gonna happen at some point. No one has,
has,
lived forever. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna die at some point. We have an expiration
date. So that's the first important thing I think we needed to think about. So the
(06:57):
book was divided into three parts. The first part, we talk about legacy, you know,
what legacy are you leaving? And I'm not really talking about money. I'm talking
about the emotional
legacies that we leave, the people that we love. And we leave a legacy to every person
we meet, every contact we have. I happened to have six grandchildren, and I think
they were the inspiration for the book. Again, when my husband died, they were so
(07:20):
devastated. And,
I wanna really leave a legacy for them. So I started thinking, well, what are the
legacies that we leave? There are many of them. The best and most important one is
leaving a legacy of love. We can all leave a legacy of love. And as I look when you
get to be 67, I've met a lot of very interesting people in my life. It's amazing
when you look back on the people that you've met. So I was able to get stories. I
(07:42):
have a Holocaust survivor. I I work in Rwanda. I do memorial libraries for my son.
We 65 libraries. We've sent over 350,000 books,
to Rwanda. So I spent a lot of time there, and they survived a horrible genocide.
you look at the perspective of a Holocaust survivor. Genocide survivor, and how in
the world could they ever be joyful in their lives? Again, you, it's just hard to
(08:02):
imagine. But I learned so much from them, people that have really struggled with
difficult things. So I've, I've,
the first third of the book is all about legacy. What kinda legacies can you leave
a trust, a legacy of faith, legacy of friendship. So many of them. And, and there
are more legacies than even I've listed. But positive legacies, things that we can
teach the next generation that will help them survive and thrive after we're gone.
(08:24):
In the middle of the book, I talk about death and dying. And in the process of this
book, I became a death doula because I figured I really needed to learn a little
bit more about this process. And it was a fascinating education. And I now help people
kind of prepare,
these legacy books,
for the time when they're gone. And looking at death
is a so fascinating because
people have different ideas about what's gonna happen. You know, I, I'm a Christian,
(08:47):
I have certain ideas. I believe I'm gonna see my family again. I'm, you know, my
both feet in on that one. Other people believe,
that you be, be reincarnated. I've talked, one of the most fascinating things you
can do is if you're in a group of people, especially once you don't know, ask 'em
what they think is gonna happen when they die, the first thing they do is kind of
start, it gets startled. 'cause it's not usually something you ask. But if you're
(09:08):
in a trusting relationship where people feel they're not gonna be judged,
it is unbelievable what people think is gonna happen to 'em after they die.
it just a, it just like,
it really opens up a lot of discussion when you, when you ask that question. But
people have different beliefs on that. But the reality is, whether you believe, you
know,
that you're gonna go up into heaven or you're gonna be reincarnated, or you're just
(09:29):
gonna be gone,
your legacy is still important. And if you love people here on earth, you wanna make
their continued journey as easy as possible. And you wanna make, you wanna pave that
way for them to have a happy, harmonious,
journey where they're thriving
and they're flourishing. That's what we want. So no matter what you think about death,
understand that it's gonna happen. And we need to prepare the people behind us. And
(09:53):
then the last part, the, the last third of the book is a workbook where I just kind
of, I've
researched through a number of,
there are lots and lots of books out there that talk about the steps that you need
to take, all the things you need to leave for the people behind you,
including passwords, and you know, where your insurance mon money is, where all of
these pieces are, a title to your car,
(10:14):
I also have a list for how to prepare them emotionally, which I think is, is the
part that I think is, is so critical. And the first thing to do is understand the
grief and mourning process. When my son died,
also about a year after he died, I was a practicing dentist. I was practicing full-time.
My husband had liver cancer and had just had a transplant. So I was the, the primary
(10:36):
breadwinner in my family. And all of a sudden I was diagnosed with nerve damage in
my drilling fingers.
And the d doctors at Mayo Clinic said, okay, you're done.
so I just lost my son a year ago. My husband could work a day or two a week, and
that's okay.
And now I'm done. My whole identity as
a clinical dentist, was over and one day,
(10:57):
although I certainly, I had symptoms up until that point, but I was a little in a
little bit of denial. And so all of a sudden my, my role as a dentist was gone too.
So another, you know, my identity was, was shrinking.
And so I felt, at that time, I had a little time on my hands. So I thought, well,
what am I gonna do? I really do need a grief counselor. But, you know, we, dentists
sometimes are a little bit type A and I'm in the baby boomer generation, so we don't
(11:19):
really get help as we should have. The, the millennials
and Generation X are much better at seeking help, you know, psych
for psychological issues. But we are, we're not so good at that. So, of course, I
did what any, you know, Dennis would do, is I became a grief counselor. 'cause I
had time. So I studied, became certified, and I was doing some grief counseling in
my church. But I realized at that time that
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my grief had not been resolved yet. I was still,
I'd still not work through it. So I, although I could help other people, I would,
every time I worked with somebody, I'd kind of go further down in the pit, you know?
So my, my going up was, was I would go up and then I'd help somebody else, and then
I'd go down, then I'd go up. So I realized that I, I, I needed to get fully healed
or more healed
(12:02):
than I was.
but during that time, my favorite part of this, the grief counseling education I
got, was learning about the tasks of mourning. We all know about,
the stages of grief, you know, stages,
stages, kind of like where you're gonna go through them. There's not much you can
do, but, but there's, there are tasks of mourning. And I love the word task because
then it gives me something to hold on to.
(12:23):
And that just helps me. We're all different in how we heal. This is just the way
I am.
Yeah. You can check it off because that's how you check it off. So
sorry. Yeah. You just, exactly. You check, I'm,
I'm a checker offer. So you, basically, the first task would be accepting what's
going on. The second task would be,
trying to,
define the world as it is, kind of to make the, the,
adjustments to the world as you see it. Then there's a task of processing the grief.
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That's actually the second task is processing the grief. And then the fourth task
and the, and the task that kind of we all work towards is putting the person you're
grieving somewhere in your heart, somewhere on, you know, somewhere in your being.
And then living your life without that shroud of grief. And anybody that's been a
grieving process knows you walk around like a zombie with this shroud on you for
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a certain period of time.
And the task is to, to remember that person. You can't deny that person existed.
You can't just pretend it didn't happen.
Have a place for that person, and then move forward in your life,
without letting that grief affect your daily living. Now I have six grandchildren
and it's, it's taken 15 years for my, my son. And it's now been three years for
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My husband, we were kind of prepared for, you know, we, we kept thinking, he
I was, you know, we would think he's gonna die then he didn't we. And so when he
finally did die, it was like, well, wait a minute, you know? Right.
He gonna come back. And then he didn't.
But,
so it was a little easier on, on me because I was prepared and I was a caretaker
for the last year, and I was in hospice. So I had been a little more prepared.
But I can truthfully say that I live in the moment with all six of my grandchildren.
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And my, that shroud that we carry around with us for a long time is no longer there.
And that's what we work for. We work to be able to live in the moment without that
shroud hanging over us. And it doesn't happen overnight. It happens differently for
everybody. Took me a long time, you know, especially with my son and a little less
time with my husband 'cause I was prepared. But that's, that's the, that's what we
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all strive for, is to get rid of that shroud. Those are kinda like letting some light
back in. Yes. You know, the darkness. And then I know grief, you know, it comes in
waves.
You know, I've been through some stuff
and you could be having a great day and all of a sudden it just hits you. Does do
you still get those waves after 15 year? I mean,
yeah.
I not, I used to get terrible waves. And in fact, my husband, my son was a student
(14:39):
at Columbia University. He was a very brilliant student. And,
so for many years, hearing the word Columbia or New York
would set me off just, oh, you know, just into one. I'd be walking along kind of
thinking I was doing pretty good. And then bam, I flat down on the sidewalk and I,
and it was everywhere. If you, if you think about it, Columbia and New York or everywhere,
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that's kind of a sneaky one because it's, it is in a lot of places. Columbia, South Carolina,
Columbia, the country, Columbia Glacier, Columbia Shuttle was going on at that time.
And even when I would go in my closet and I'd be looking for some clothes and I'd
see a shirt with Columbia Sportswear, I mean, it was like, yeah, I'm glad I'm wearing
my Columbia sex. You
know,
it's crazy. Yeah. It's just crazy how that works and how it works in your brain.
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But I was able to work through that. Of course, that doesn't happen anymore, but,
things can trigger you. And, and fortunately
it this time,
there is a wave, but it, it's not the tsunami that it was, it's a little wave. I
just, you know, I don't, so if I, I like to talk about the grief pit. You know, if
you're, I've been down as many of us have in the bottom of the grief pit with like
one nostril above to get air. You know, you're just struggling and trying to get
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out.
and, and I, I have not gone down into that bottom for a long time,
but you're up in the top areas.
you know, I might, I might fall a little bit here and there on an anniversary, but
for the most part,
I'm, I'm able to live in the moment without that shroud or with, in, in the, the
waves that come are not really waves anymore. They're kind of just little ripples.
Right. Mine's a black Friday, and of course it comes every year. And
(16:04):
black Friday, I'm like, yeah, just triggers. But you, like you said, they, they do
get better and you're able to like even say it, you know, or
after a while. Yeah. But it takes a while. And you're talking about building the
legacy, a legacy of love. And when you talk about carrying that person the memory
with you is that, like the legacy you're talking about, you know, the legacy you
(16:25):
wanna build is so people have good memories of fall in love, and then they can remember
you later on your birthday or anniversaries. You can, instead of being down
with the nos, you know, trying to get a little bit of air, you can actually like,
embrace that legacy and that love and actually feel good, you know, feel good in
love and celebration instead of so much grief. Right?
Yeah. And I think for me, what, what what happened is, you know, in the first, your,
(16:49):
the first part of your grief,
it's, it's hard to think about. I mean, and we all grieve differently.
when my son died,
I couldn't go into his room for two years,
but my husband would go in there and sit every night for a while. And, and, and at
first it would kind of
make me a little upset that he'd go in the gym, why are you doing that? 'cause he'd
come out very sad. But that was just how he grieved.
So when you are grieving as a couple, or as a family, it's important to know that
(17:13):
every single person is gonna grieve differently. So my husband needed to grieve by
being there, being in his room. I really, seriously, it was three years, two, three
years, I can't remember how long, but about that time before I even walked into his
room, I, I,
any of his stuff. I, it was just the same as it was before, which is kind of cr crazy.
Most people might think that we let let the room sit there like that for all that
(17:36):
time.
so we might no time kind of stops. I'm sure it didn't seem like three years to you.
It was like yesterday. Yeah, like yesterday.
So it's important for us to understand that everyone's gonna grieve differently and
then everyone has a different grief journey. So you can't expect, and, and I am guilty
of that myself before I went through all this,
to think like, well, you know, it's been two years. Little Mary should be over this
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by now. She should be, well, you know what, maybe some Mary's would be over it, but
some are not. And, and there are people, and I think we all know some who
can never work through the grief, can never get task number two done.
They can never work through the grief. And, and that's why it's so critical to try
hard. And I think sometimes we feel so overcome that we don't have the ability to
(18:21):
do that. And I would really like to encourage everyone to just fight it. I,
I learned that from,
one of my husband's cousins who,
about two weeks after Eric died, we were back at work, we're back in our dental office.
And I was in that, I was in the zombie stage, you know, kinda walking around and
I was walking outside of the office. My husband was with a cousin of his, and they
were talking by the car outside.
(18:42):
And my, the cousin came up to me with his finger wagging, and he is wagging his finger,
me, look, I'm a zombie grieving mother, right? Don't wag your finger at me. He was
wagging his finger at me and said, don't you ever let your remaining children feel
that they are not enough. And he just was shouting that he was so emotional. And
it caught me by surprise. And I thought, what? At first I thought, what, what, what,
(19:04):
what are you saying to me? And then I thought, oh my goodness, he's right. And the
reason he was right, and only he could say this, if someone else had said it, it
wouldn't have come out the same way.
But he was right because he had lost his brother
at 19 years old. He'd been out drinking. And
he, you know, he was passed out and his friends thought they were doing him a favor,
put him in the car, left him in front of the house, but this is Minnesota. It was
(19:27):
like minus five degrees outside. And he froze to death in his car
and his parents
could never
get over that. So essentially this young man lost his brother and his parents on
the same day. And he was really telling me, do not let that happen to you. And it
was one of the most important things to, to have happened to me for him to say that,
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because when you are grieving,
it's very hard to get out of that pit. And his words made me realize that I had a
husband and two daughters that still needed me. And,
it really gave me motivation when I was down to fight. 'cause you have to fight.
You have to fight and scrape and kick your way outta that pit. You don't just come
out easily. So it takes a lot of effort and a lot of work. And thank goodness I got
(20:11):
the motivation to do that. But I know it's, it's, you cannot ever judge someone with
how
they react to grief.
Yeah. And your pit. I mean, unfortunately, it's like the, the pettiest of the pit
pit. So Yeah. Yeah. To get out of that,
do you think a lot of, of trouble with,
getting over grief is like guilt? Like for why you feel guilty? Like, I feel guilty
if I don't feel pain every day. If I don't hurt every day, I'm just, I feel guilty
(20:34):
for not suffering or for not feeling that. Yes. Absolutely. And, and
it's important for you to remember no matter what now, I'm, I'm again a Christian,
and, and part of our faith is the joy of the Lord. Lord is your strength. So being
joyful is something that part of my faith tells me we need to really strive for to
be joyful. So that helped me. However, for anybody, it's important to remember that,
(20:56):
whether you have that type faith or not,
how would your loved one
want you to feel
six months after, a year after? Would your loved one
want you to be in a miserable pit?
Or would your loved one want you to be out of that pit and happy and moving forward
with your life? And if, if that loved one loved you,
they would want you to be outta the pit and happy.
(21:16):
And, and sometimes, and, and I'm going through this. I work with widows,
and we have a couple widows that have been widowed for a few years and now getting
remarried. And
there's a lot of guilt involved in that. Not only because, oh my gosh, I was married
to this wonderful man, but now I found another wonderful man, and
am, am you know, is that, am I hurting the memory of my husband by being happy now
(21:37):
with this other husband? And, and of course the answer is no. No. And that also goes
with
children. If you have children, I've got a friend that married,
two widows, a widow and a widow,
and they just have remarried and they have children.
And it's hard for the children because they're still grieving their parent. And sometimes
it's hard for them
to see happiness. Like your, your mom moving on to another guy. So now there's another
(22:01):
guy in her life, but wait a minute, you're dad's still dead. You know, she's got
a husband.
But your dad's still dead. Same with the wi the widower. You know, you mom, mom's
dead. My mom is dead, and now you're happy with somebody else.
And it, that's a false guilt. I think we just have to realize that's a false guilt.
And, and you, and whether you're, you know, no matter how you believe spiritually
joy is, is a great goal in your life. And you should not worry about being joyful
(22:25):
after you know, you, you grieve through the process of Yes. And your spouse. I mean,
if your spouse loved you, they would want you to be happy. And Absolutely. I mean,
you know, I always say like, something happens to me. I want you to be happy. I mean,
you know, wait a little bit. But yeah, be happy. Don't, yeah, definitely. And then
with my father,
he'd be mad at me. Of course. You know, I grieve for a while, but then I'm like,
he's,
he'd be mad if I just be mad.
(22:46):
Just gave up on life and just grieve the whole time. So that, that helps too. Just
knowing that they don't want you to be sad or,
you know, I'm sure your son the same way. They don't want you to be, they don't do
things.
This doesn't happen because for you to be sad, you know?
Yeah. So people that love you, that's the last thing they want.
Absolutely. And so you're doing them a disservice in their memory and their legacy
by being sad. Which I, which is hard not to do, but, you know,
(23:07):
give yourself grace and time, but at the same time.
Absolutely. Yeah. I, I had a,
an experience now 'cause I'm, what I'm trying to do, and through this book and through
my life,
I want to make sure that my grandchildren, when I die, don't suffer as much as they
did when their PopPop died, even though I'll have more time with them.
And so I've been working on that, and I've been talking about, you know, sometime
at some point Anna's gonna die too, but I just want you to know how much I love you.
(23:30):
And I'm so grateful for any minute that we have together.
And,
and, but, you know, you wonder how that's gonna affect them. And I know it, I know
this works because I just had my little niece, Heidi,
my little niece, excuse my grandchild, Heidi, who was at the dinner table and, and
I was making dinner. And she looked at me and she goes, Nana. And I said, yeah, honey.
And she said,
well,
if what happened to PopPop
(23:50):
happens to you? And then she stopped. And I go, well, what do you mean, honey? You
mean if I died? And she goes,
Nana, if you died,
could we still go on the Disney cruise? And I said,
and it was like, yes, yes you can.
And I said, I want you to be happy. You need to go on. In fact, when you're happy,
you honor me. Yes.
So I want you to honor me by being happy. And I'm, I'm trying to have that language
with them,
(24:10):
that you honor me by being happy. 'cause I want to help them avoid that grief. And
even, even as a husband, my husband and I, my husband was quite the extrovert. And
he, but he needed people in his life. I'm much more of an introvert. He's, he was
quite the extrovert. And I knew that if I died, he would have to have somebody
To help him. 'cause he would get so lonely by himself. And so we kind of had a joke
(24:30):
in the family, and I said, I, with the girls, everybody present. And we would say,
I'd say, now, you know, honey, you know, if I were to die first, then,
at least don't look for another wife until after the funeral. After the funeral.
It's fairgate. But but don't look for another wife until after the funeral. We all
laughed. But I did that intentionally
in front of the other family members to say,
if I died, your dad is gonna need to find another wife because,
(24:53):
he just can't
live on his own. That way they know he had your blessing. So they had my blessing
better. Yes.
And you could even put that in your paperwork. Right?
in your book, if you felt like you needed to, you know, if you, you know, if you
needed to let your kids know that it's okay.
right. That we knew that. And I think that's important too, because I find that,
especially I'm older than you, and so I, I am, my peer group has a number of widows,
(25:15):
and it is really an issue and a problem. The guilt that they feel if they were to,
you know, become involved with somebody else. I tend to be, I'm not expecting that
to happen because I'm, I'm an introvert, and I kind of see, to me it's like, okay,
life is easy now because
I can take care of myself and I have my family. And if, you know, if I were to go
and find another a man, then, then I, now I have to share that family. And then,
(25:36):
you know, so that's kind of how I'm thinking. You never know what's gonna happen.
But I'm not really planning that. I don't really need that, but my husband would've
needed to marry right away. And you tend to find that more men get married a lot
faster than the women after. Yeah, that's, that's what I hear. They, yeah. Yeah.
They're used to having a, a wife take now, you know, take care of 'em or be there
for them and Yeah. For sure. And us ladies we're kinda like, I could be
(25:58):
by myself a little bit, like, get my dog. Yeah. I get my dog. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
And, and so with the,
preparing your own legacy or not, not just say legacy. So give love and all that
good stuff, and memories and fondness. But as far as the se the paperwork and the
serious, the legal stuff
in your book, you have a checklist, right? Of what you recommend having done. And
(26:19):
recommend doing, do, do you recommend doing that, like on your own, like on a software?
Or do you recommend just getting a lawyer? It just kind of depends on how, how big
your financial estate is at that point. And
well, getting a lawyer for the will is really important. And you need to have a will.
It's, it's, I just had a friend that graduated my class in high school who died without
a will. And her family,
(26:40):
they're, they just don't even know what to do. There's no money for the, the, the
funeral. They don't, they, they, they're, they just have, they're, they're breaking
apart right now. And
when you have that type of thing happen, you open up your,
You open the family up to conflict. So, and it certainly, I don't blame her for not
doing that. In fact, most people don't have a will across our country. Most people
do not
she wasn't expecting to die. I mean, when she's 85, she might've gotten her will,
(27:02):
but she wasn't expecting to die. But it causes so much stress with her family because
she was not prepared to go. And so the will needs to be done with an attorney because
every state is different.
So you need, you know, there's some things online. I'm not sure how well they work,
but at least have something.
I would go to an attorney and, you know, we, we all are, nobody likes to pay for
attorneys. You know, we, because they're a little, they're, they are expensive. But
(27:24):
this is one expense that's really important because it might prevent your family
from going through conflict after you die. And, you know, one thing I I tell my girls
is that the biggest, my, my biggest joy
is the fact that they're very close. They're both attorneys. And when my husband
and I wrote our will we send it to them first before we signed it and said, okay
(27:44):
guys, here's the will. Look it over now, and if you don't like something, let us
know now, or we can change it. But once, once we sign it forever, hold your piece.
I mean, you know what the, you know, what's going on. And then I've taken,
like my jewelry, things that I think, you know, there might be some question about.
So I had my jewelry lined it all up, and I had one girl, you know, pick one piece
and the other girl picked another piece. And we just went back and forth, like picking
(28:05):
team for softball. They picked a piece of jewelry, wew wrote it down, we put it in
the back of the wheel. So I'm trying to do everything I can to make sure that they
have a, you know, that, that they keep, the biggest gift in our family is that they're
close to each other and all the great, yes.
Grandkids are close. And they're, I hear those stories all the time. It's like, oh
my gosh, I hope, I mean, I would never want my family to fall apart. You're already
torn apart. Like, that's the last thing
(28:26):
you need at that point.
And then a will's not you. People think of a will as like listing every piece of
jewelry, which is great. List all of your assets like that. But
I think the most important thing is what I'm learning now through my mother taking
care of my mother-in-law's estate. She has two sons. So I'm taking care, you know,
helping them.
And
the will actually just gives you power to actually do something, or else you can't,
(28:47):
your hands are tied. I mean
the state or whatever, just take has everything and it's like, could be years. And
just having that piece of paper has been a lifesaver. And she, luckily she had a
file, everything's like nice and organized and,
you know, there's a few things that we planned on doing that we didn't get to do
because she passed away before we did that. Just kind of like the, you know, titles
of the house property, that kind of stuff
(29:07):
that we were going to do, especially after reading your book, it was on my list.
I'm like, okay, we're gonna do this. And
wow. But luckily shed most of the stuff together.
It's an act of love. I really believe that,
putting this document together, putting this binder together,
to make it easier for you is an act of love, because you're gonna be going through
so much difficulty anyway, just the, the grief.
You know, grief is one thing. Then having to manage all the legal stuff is another.
(29:27):
And what happens when people die without a will is the people that get the most of
the money are
if you look at some families that might have had a, a large inheritance, but there
was a dispute,
and there, if there's a dispute, then really the attorneys end up getting most of
the money and then whatever is left, you know, little leftover. So it's like, what,
you know, both daughters are attorneys, but I don't really recognize you, you know,
(29:49):
tell your daughters to plug their ears. But do you think the attorneys kind of like
feed the fuel, feed the fight, like keep fighting? Come on, that's,
yeah. And it, but that's what, you know, that's their job. You know, if you're,
if you're on one side and you say, well, I believe this is what I need to get, and
they're gonna fight for you, but then they're gonna charge for it, and the other
side will fight and they'll charge for it. And it might be perfectly rational charge,
but over time, over years sometimes. And then you have to go to court and set a court
(30:12):
date and the court date, you know, might extend again and again, it sometimes takes
years to work through these things. Not to mention just the heartache. I mean, I,
I, I just know of so many families where,
and, and many times there families where maybe there was a second marriage involved.
And,
and then there are difficult feelings that's always gonna leave, you know, it, it,
it, it leaves a lot more,
possibility. Yeah. Dispute if there's a second marriage, and then who's, you know,
(30:36):
is it, it, what, what was left for my mother's estate and now I have a stepmother?
And basically then the step Yeah. Then the step kids get it all. Even though it was
your side. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, we had funny, we had a funny thing with our family
when we were, because I said we talked, you know, we talked about what would happened
when we died. And I talked about Jim waiting for the funeral before he looked
because we knew that Jim would need another wife, we had a, our dream home, our dream
(31:00):
retirement home was a cabin. And when we, we put the cabin actually as a trust in
my name,
and then Jim could live in it the rest of his life. But if I died, my children would
get the cabin. The reason we did that is we said, you know, if Jim remarried, which
he probably would, then we would want the cabin. And we all agreed when everybody
was alive, we would want the cabin to go to our children. And, and, and, because
(31:24):
typically what would happen is if Jim died, everything would go to the new wife.
And then when the new wife died, she may give it to all to her children, you know,
and our children might be left out. So those are important things to think ahead
and do,
before you die. And then it's all worked out because that's, that's where the lawyers
get involved, especially in, in stepchildren and things like that. Almost. Yeah.
(31:44):
Almost. Especially if you're
Yeah. Remarried. I could see that for sure. And then your pets too.
there's a c clause in the will too. Figure who's gonna take care of your pets and
Yes. And make sure that they want them.
Yeah. I inherited my best friend's dog, so it's like,
yeah.
But of course I love dogs and there's, you know, there's a reason. But yeah.
Gotta think, you
you have to think of all those things. And it might not be that same dog you have
now, but you, you know.
Right. And even the title of your car, you know, when if they wanna sell
(32:07):
you paid it off. So I have that all, that's all in my binder. The title's in my binder,
my social security cards are in my binder. My birth certificates are in my binder.
The wedding certificates are in my binder. Jim's death certificate is in
my, my dream is when I go that they take the book and they don't ever have to look
further. You know, they, they know all, and, and yeah. And passwords. Just having
the passwords she had to book too, with all the passwords. It helps so much because
(32:29):
you can actually go into the accounts and close 'em out or let them know, or,
you know, and it's so much easier than having to wait months. And then you're still
build all this, you know, utilities, everything that somebody's life is still in
full motion when they die
and they're still being charged. So you need to be able to get to that information
and stop that information. And all you wanna do is lay down and cry. But you, you
(32:50):
know, that's kind of why I'm doing it for the boys. 'cause you know, it's their mom.
For me, it's not as hard. I mean, it's hard, but yeah. Somebody needs to go in there
and take care of the stuff, or they're just gonna get
Right. And you can't procrastinate. You just can't procrastinate. 'cause it just,
things just pile up. If you do, you have to get rid of the credit cards, get to cut
them off
and yeah. And so, one thing that's really interesting, I, I think our society is
(33:11):
starting to kind of catch on a little bit about this,
is that there is a, there's an app on,
on phones now called the Legacy app, where you can, you can,
put the name of the person that, that can have access to your phone and your password
when you die.
Okay. Kinda like Facebook, how they have legacy. Yeah. Okay.
So I think that's really important to make sure you have somebody,
in line for that so they can have, they can get to your phone and have access to
(33:34):
your phone. Now I've just given my, my girls my password. They own know my password
because my
grandchildren figured out my password a long time ago. So, you know, it's no secret
anymore. But I just,
when I go, they have my password and they get into my, into all.
Yes, yes. Yeah, that's super important.
So any, and then, okay, I, we could go on about this forever. There's so much information
that's so important,
cleaning things out too, because,
(33:55):
I think I read in there, was it you that it's a hoarder or your husband or, yes,
I know a lot of people that hoard stuff and Yes,
like my mom's always trying to gimme stuff. Sorry mom, I love yourself. And, and
you don't wanna it, do you? No, but it's so great. I'm like, so great. Wear that
brand new shoe. Never wore so great. Why don't you wear, I'm like, I know. Yeah.
And I'm the same way. I'm like, I should see if somebody wants this when I'm thinking
that nobody wants that. But
(34:17):
I know. Okay. So that is hard. Okay. As a baby boomer, that is so hard because we
saved up our China and the beautiful China that we're going to pass on. Is it heirloom
down to the generations? This is our dream, right? Well, it, it's, it's a dream that's
gone bust for most of us. And we have to realize that. So our challenge is baby boomers
is to understand that,
(34:38):
anything that we have left, when we die, somebody has to clean up.
Right? So I really recommend getting rid of as much stuff as you can before you go.
And I face that challenge. I, I call myself a closet hoarder and that my, you know,
everything looks fine in my, in my rooms. And rooms are really good. But if you try
to open a closet, you know, watch out, something's gonna fall out on you because
I throw everything in the closet. So I'm working and I'm cleaning them out. I'm,
(35:01):
I'm taking care of my closets. But most importantly, we had a second home.
we had a cabin. And the cabin I talked to you about before that was the prime, the
jewel in our family. That was our, our most important possession was this beautiful
lake cabin that we had built for our retirement. And had Jim stayed alive, we would
be living in that cabin. It's a beautiful cabin, but when I'm living alone, it's
(35:22):
four hours away from one grandchild, one, one set of grandchildren and my daughter.
And then, then now it's 13 hours away from the other. And it's just too far. Because
I, I live, I go back and forth to my grandkids 'cause I just love to keep up with
them. So it was too far from the grandkids and I wasn't living there. And I did a
little, I rented it out, you know, did some short term rentals and that was fine,
(35:42):
but it was still very expensive. It's a expensive piece of property. There was a
lot of lake lake property there. And what I was doing is, is I was actually working
longer and the reason I was working was to keep the cabin because even though it's
paid off, even though I rent it out, the cost to rent it out, pretty much,
wipe out
The cost that it takes to maintain it. 'cause I have to have cleaning. We have to
(36:02):
do laundry. We have to, you know, all these things to keep it going.
So
I, I told, I mentioned to the girls, 'cause my dream, just like your mom's was that
the kids will, and this will be the family cabin. 'cause we built it up from the
ground up. This is our family cabin. And my grandchildren will be in this cabin and
we'll have so much fun in this cabin.
Well, my daughter's married husbands whose family's also had cabins that were much
(36:25):
closer than our cabin.
So all of our grandchildren had the cabin experience. Right.
And so I, I said to the kids, okay guys, anybody who wants the cabin, I'll just give
it you and you can just take it over. And they're like, we can't afford to keep that
cabin.
We, it's too expensive, mom. We can't afford to pay the taxes. And the, the, you
know, the insurance is really high and we can't afford it. Mom.
(36:45):
and it really took, it, it kind of took the wind outta me for a little bit because
that was our dream. You know, our dream is to be in this cabin.
And,
it was our dream for many years.
And I had to come to terms with, okay, this is not gonna be a cabin that's inherited
from my generation down. So what am I gonna do about it? Am I gonna continue
to maintain a cabin that the kids don't want? Or am I gonna just sell the cabin to
(37:06):
live off the pro proceeds? Right?
So I did, I sold the cabin.
and however, there was a lot of storage area in that cabin. We had a lot of things,
in there. And my, my
son-in-Law, and my daughter had told Jim and I that we were not allowed to die until
we cleaned out that shed. 'cause there was a lot of stuff in that shed. And of course,
Jim didn't listen to him and died. Anyway, so it was up to me. And so I did it took
(37:29):
some time, but I cleaned that darn thing out. And,
it says a little bit more to do. We have things in pods that we're gonna take care
of this summer, but by the end of the summer, I will have really divested myself
of pretty much anything I didn't need.
And the reality is, it is so freeing for me. I didn't realize this. It was a hard
process to, to go through. And it's, I think, as important as children to realize
(37:49):
it's really hard for your parents to part with that stuff. You know, I still had
all the, you know, the, the little,
papers that my children had drawn when they were three. And you know, I had boxes
of, you know, pictures when pictures, you know, were paper not on,
on my computer. So I transferred those over to a little, you know, little,
well, a flash drive. I have 'em all in a flash drive. And,
(38:10):
and I've downsized and it's very, very freeing. And so I'm really challenging my
generation
to clean up their mess because it's not fair for me. It would not be fair for me
to make my kids
clean all that stuff up, because it really did take a long time to clean that shit
out. Clean. You should think you're passing on gifts, but really you're passing on
a burden. I'm passing on.
It was a treasure to me. Right. But it was junk to them. And so I had, I had to get
(38:34):
over that, especially the China and stuff. Although I, what is it with baby boomers
in China, there seems to be a lot of,
a lot of China. Oh my goodness. Yes. Well, we, we see that we, yeah. You know, for
generations, if you had China, that was a symbol of, of affluence, right? So you
got a China pattern that was beautiful, that was a symbol of affluence. And you'd
have beautiful ch dinner parties and
so on. And I would have that for all my kids' birthdays. We'd have a, we'd have a
(38:58):
formal setup in our dining room for birthdays and have big dinners.
and it's something that my kids feel is just a big burden and there's no place to
put it. So I have to learn to adapt to the fact that they don't want it Now. They
get out paper plates and stuff. That's their big, big dinners. Yes.
It's just stuff. And to get rid of it, and I'm, I am learning that lesson. It is
(39:18):
hard.
getting this folder put together was a big monkey off my back because I thought,
oh my gosh, if I were to die, my kids would have to, you know, do all this to try
to fix. Yeah. And you just feel better. Like, just even me just having a wheel and
stuff going on vacation when my kids were little, it's like, yeah, I just felt better,
even though, like, still be safe, but just, I don't wanna leave. And yeah. Something
happens to you, you just wanna make sure everything's taken care of. Yeah. Yes, exactly.
(39:41):
We would call our kids on the plane. Okay. Now I just want you to know this is where
the will is. I know who you're trying to have fun,
mom. I know. Yeah. Well, so,
so could people buy your book or is it, yes, the book is, are You Ready? How to Build
a Legacy to Die For?
And it's available on Amazon. In Barnes and Noble. It was the number one bestseller
on both. So,
you can, you can get it on Barnes and Noble or Amazon.
(40:03):
Yeah. So there, and
at first, I must say, when they came up and they were talking about death, I forget
what the title was and I was kinda like, you could tell everybody in the rumors.
It's kinda like,
because like you said, nobody wants to talk about it. So I was like, oh no. Like,
I don't, if I hear it, it could happen. It could make, it makes it real. It's like
a reality. And then I was listening to you and I was like, whoa, your story. And
then I was like, well, she's right. She's right. And something that
you don't necessarily wanna hear, but you need to.
(40:25):
we have to face our fears. That's part of life. You have to face your fears and death
is real and it's gonna happen. And so we have to face it. And if we truly love our
children and our grandchildren and the people that go behind us,
this is our job.
We just need to do it. And it, but it's hard. And so I don't judge anyone that doesn't
do it because it's a hard thing to do. But I think for, for, for me, it's been very
(40:47):
freeing. It's been freeing process.
Yeah. And I think it will be for everybody. Well, thank you for coming on today and
sharing your story and information and I hope somebody,
I hope people get some information out of this and they can,
yeah. Help them as well.
Thank you so much for,
appreciate it.
I'm 67 years old and at that age I've been through a lot in my life. As many people
(00:05):
who get older
have a lot going in their lives, a lot of loss. I lost my mother and my son to suicide,
and I lost my husband to a broken heart,
just to, I, I think because of the suicide death of my son. And
each of those losses, you lose part of your identity whenever you have a loss. So
I lost, you know, my identity as a daughter when my mother died. My identity as a
(00:27):
mother of a son when my son died, and my identity as a wife when my husband died.
So, from those experiences, I realized how death
has such a, an impact on the survivors on all of us.
when my husband died, my grandchildren in particular were
really affected ne negatively by his death. He missed their popup so much.
And I started to think, well, you know,
(00:47):
I'm next up to the plate. Hopefully I don't wanna lose any more children. So I wanna,
I wanna be next up to the plate. So I'm, I'm next up,
what can I do to help my children and my grandchildren survive and thrive
without me and their lives?
And I started doing some research and I ended up writing a book. Are You Ready? How
to build a Legacy to Die For,
to do just that, to help us think about the legacy that we're building with every
(01:08):
interaction we have with every person that we meet,
and to look at death and dying and not be afraid of it. I'm not afraid of death and
die. I'm not afraid to die.
And then also to look at what do we need to do to make sure that when we do go,
that our children are the best prepared that they can be
because of our efforts. So I've,
I have my legacy, a big legacy,
(01:29):
journal. I have a big,
binder that has everything in it, you know, titles of my car, you know, where you
know who sold the house, all the house details,
where all my bank statements are, where my retirement plan is, all of those things.
All of the passwords. I have the,
a binder that has all of that in there
so that when I die, my children know exactly where it is. When I die, they can go
(01:51):
pick out the binder and everything. They'll need to know everything they need to
cope with. My death afterwards is in that binder. And I'm, so, I'm encouraging people
to think about how we can make life easier for our survivors after we die,
right? Because we, or they are so busy grieving and so upset. And then to,
unfortunately, you have to go right into the business and the serious and make decisions
(02:16):
and not knowing where to do what to go, where to go, or what your wishes are,
or how to finance all of those wishes as well. So it's nice to have one packet ready
to go,
and even where to get the money, you know,
How do you get the hold of the money that, that you need to,
to finance a funeral or to, you know, you, you need to make sure that you leave your
children or whoever you want to leave
(02:36):
as the beneficiaries,
of your,
checking account so that,
when you die, you have to sign some papers, but so that when you die,
automatically these people will have access to your checking account or your, in
your savings account. So they'll have access to that, so then they can pay for the
things that need to take place after you die.
Right. So,
we're kind of jumping around and right into that, but with that, do you,
(02:57):
think it's best to have somebody on your account?
I guess it's kind of hard because people could die at any time, unless, unfortunately,
unless you're planning a suicide, you wouldn't know that. And so, like, younger people
might not, you don't want somebody on your bank account. But as you get older, you
know, like you put your children on there. But what about when you're younger? How
does that work? You just have the documents to state that it goes to somebody.
Yeah. There are documents you can sign in, in,
(03:20):
I think every bank that says that, when I die, this person will have access to my
account automatically. The idea of getting someone on your account gets a little
tricky, because one of the things you fight for when you're my age is your independence.
You know, you wanna be an independent, you don't wanna be a burden. You don't want
anyone else, you know, having to help you. You want to kind of take care of things
(03:40):
yourself. Now, of course, there might come a time when I can't
And then you give your power of attorney to somebody and you let them take care of
that. But so, but that's kind of a battle. And when you see, when you talk with,
people in their seventies and their eighties, most of them really wanna stay independent
as much as possible and not have someone else on their account. They wanna live their
lives, do their thing without feeling that their, their, their children have to get
(04:02):
too involved. Just kind of like when you were children in, your parents were too
involved. It's kind of the other way around it. Things turn around when you get older,
right. And yeah, it's, it's really kind of funny that way because in some ways my
kids take care of me. And a lot of, for instance, Easter's coming up
and,
you know, where do I go for Easter? I just wait to, for the kids to figure out where
I'm going, and I just go wherever, you know, wherever they tell me.
So there are certain things that my kids have taken over now, and that's good, but
(04:25):
the, and the checking account is one of those issues. You have to be careful and
com confident and comfortable to do that. But you can,
you can sign papers in a bank that will state that when you die, this person will
have access to your account. And that's a very important thing to do. So, planning
ahead and, and also when you have,
not only your life,
life insurance for people, but your savings accounts, your,
(04:45):
retirement funds, you need to make sure that the beneficiaries are clearly stated
on those accounts. That makes it so much easier,
for the, for your survivors to take care of all those things.
Yeah. So we, we had, I met you and,
I got a copy of your book
and I wrote your book
and it, and just the way timing is, it's like I just have to actually won it.
(05:05):
And
how, how later on things kind of make sense there. I was like, wow. So right after
that, so my mother-in-Law passed away kind of unexpectedly.
And I went through all this stuff
and I was like,
wow. And of course, I picked it up and kind of browsed through it a little bit at
that point. And then all of a sudden I'm like, wow. And so I
read it and it helped a lot.
Thank you. And it's like,
so you, and you never know when you're gonna need this information. And I really
(05:27):
like how, and you talked about just death and dying in the beginning. 'cause that's
the first thing you do, is you process it and the emotions and, and, and the sadness.
And you have to
go through that as well. Do you wanna explain how, like, the process of your book,
because then you go kind of, it was so perfect 'cause you went into that, and then
you went into
the paperwork and the stuff, and then how to prepare, how Now of course I'm preparing
(05:49):
my own stuff because I know what, what went well and what didn't, what I need to
do. And so you wrote it just perfectly in order. Thank you. So do you wanna explain
kind of how, how you did that and what the process was? Sure. And yeah, sure. Well,
it's, it's funny because I never thought, you know, I was a dentist and then I was
a speaker. And then as I'm getting older, you know, the three hours speaking,
engagements that you do if you're a clinical speaker, kind of getting a little tiring
(06:12):
for my voice. My voice was starting to give up. First. I thought, uhoh, I better,
you know, I gotta, what, what else can I do now? And,
so suddenly I just felt I, that, that this was a book people needed because we aren't
prepared. We live in a death denying culture. We don't prepare for death. In fact,
we do everything we can look at all the effort we make on keeping healthy, which
we need to continue to do. 'cause the longer we're healthy, the longer we can leave
a legacy. So we need to keep doing that. But to know that no matter how,
(06:35):
what, no matter how
good we've been on our diets and what, no matter what shape we're in, at some point,
we are still gonna die. So we still have to prepare for that. Even though we, we
take so many steps to prolong our life. We still need to understand that,
that it's gonna happen at some point. No one has,
has,
lived forever. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna die at some point. We have an expiration
date. So that's the first important thing I think we needed to think about. So the
(06:57):
book was divided into three parts. The first part, we talk about legacy, you know,
what legacy are you leaving? And I'm not really talking about money. I'm talking
about the emotional
legacies that we leave, the people that we love. And we leave a legacy to every person
we meet, every contact we have. I happened to have six grandchildren, and I think
they were the inspiration for the book. Again, when my husband died, they were so
(07:20):
devastated. And,
I wanna really leave a legacy for them. So I started thinking, well, what are the
legacies that we leave? There are many of them. The best and most important one is
leaving a legacy of love. We can all leave a legacy of love. And as I look when you
get to be 67, I've met a lot of very interesting people in my life. It's amazing
when you look back on the people that you've met. So I was able to get stories. I
(07:42):
have a Holocaust survivor. I I work in Rwanda. I do memorial libraries for my son.
We 65 libraries. We've sent over 350,000 books,
to Rwanda. So I spent a lot of time there, and they survived a horrible genocide.
you look at the perspective of a Holocaust survivor. Genocide survivor, and how in
the world could they ever be joyful in their lives? Again, you, it's just hard to
(08:02):
imagine. But I learned so much from them, people that have really struggled with
difficult things. So I've, I've,
the first third of the book is all about legacy. What kinda legacies can you leave
a trust, a legacy of faith, legacy of friendship. So many of them. And, and there
are more legacies than even I've listed. But positive legacies, things that we can
teach the next generation that will help them survive and thrive after we're gone.
(08:24):
In the middle of the book, I talk about death and dying. And in the process of this
book, I became a death doula because I figured I really needed to learn a little
bit more about this process. And it was a fascinating education. And I now help people
kind of prepare,
these legacy books,
for the time when they're gone. And looking at death
is a so fascinating because
people have different ideas about what's gonna happen. You know, I, I'm a Christian,
(08:47):
I have certain ideas. I believe I'm gonna see my family again. I'm, you know, my
both feet in on that one. Other people believe,
that you be, be reincarnated. I've talked, one of the most fascinating things you
can do is if you're in a group of people, especially once you don't know, ask 'em
what they think is gonna happen when they die, the first thing they do is kind of
start, it gets startled. 'cause it's not usually something you ask. But if you're
(09:08):
in a trusting relationship where people feel they're not gonna be judged,
it is unbelievable what people think is gonna happen to 'em after they die.
it just a, it just like,
it really opens up a lot of discussion when you, when you ask that question. But
people have different beliefs on that. But the reality is, whether you believe, you
know,
that you're gonna go up into heaven or you're gonna be reincarnated, or you're just
(09:29):
gonna be gone,
your legacy is still important. And if you love people here on earth, you wanna make
their continued journey as easy as possible. And you wanna make, you wanna pave that
way for them to have a happy, harmonious,
journey where they're thriving
and they're flourishing. That's what we want. So no matter what you think about death,
understand that it's gonna happen. And we need to prepare the people behind us. And
(09:53):
then the last part, the, the last third of the book is a workbook where I just kind
of, I've
researched through a number of,
there are lots and lots of books out there that talk about the steps that you need
to take, all the things you need to leave for the people behind you,
including passwords, and you know, where your insurance mon money is, where all of
these pieces are, a title to your car,
(10:14):
I also have a list for how to prepare them emotionally, which I think is, is the
part that I think is, is so critical. And the first thing to do is understand the
grief and mourning process. When my son died,
also about a year after he died, I was a practicing dentist. I was practicing full-time.
My husband had liver cancer and had just had a transplant. So I was the, the primary
(10:36):
breadwinner in my family. And all of a sudden I was diagnosed with nerve damage in
my drilling fingers.
And the d doctors at Mayo Clinic said, okay, you're done.
so I just lost my son a year ago. My husband could work a day or two a week, and
that's okay.
And now I'm done. My whole identity as
a clinical dentist, was over and one day,
(10:57):
although I certainly, I had symptoms up until that point, but I was a little in a
little bit of denial. And so all of a sudden my, my role as a dentist was gone too.
So another, you know, my identity was, was shrinking.
And so I felt, at that time, I had a little time on my hands. So I thought, well,
what am I gonna do? I really do need a grief counselor. But, you know, we, dentists
sometimes are a little bit type A and I'm in the baby boomer generation, so we don't
(11:19):
really get help as we should have. The, the millennials
and Generation X are much better at seeking help, you know, psych
for psychological issues. But we are, we're not so good at that. So, of course, I
did what any, you know, Dennis would do, is I became a grief counselor. 'cause I
had time. So I studied, became certified, and I was doing some grief counseling in
my church. But I realized at that time that
(11:41):
my grief had not been resolved yet. I was still,
I'd still not work through it. So I, although I could help other people, I would,
every time I worked with somebody, I'd kind of go further down in the pit, you know?
So my, my going up was, was I would go up and then I'd help somebody else, and then
I'd go down, then I'd go up. So I realized that I, I, I needed to get fully healed
or more healed
(12:02):
than I was.
but during that time, my favorite part of this, the grief counseling education I
got, was learning about the tasks of mourning. We all know about,
the stages of grief, you know, stages,
stages, kind of like where you're gonna go through them. There's not much you can
do, but, but there's, there are tasks of mourning. And I love the word task because
then it gives me something to hold on to.
(12:23):
And that just helps me. We're all different in how we heal. This is just the way
I am.
Yeah. You can check it off because that's how you check it off. So
sorry. Yeah. You just, exactly. You check, I'm,
I'm a checker offer. So you, basically, the first task would be accepting what's
going on. The second task would be,
trying to,
define the world as it is, kind of to make the, the,
adjustments to the world as you see it. Then there's a task of processing the grief.
(12:48):
That's actually the second task is processing the grief. And then the fourth task
and the, and the task that kind of we all work towards is putting the person you're
grieving somewhere in your heart, somewhere on, you know, somewhere in your being.
And then living your life without that shroud of grief. And anybody that's been a
grieving process knows you walk around like a zombie with this shroud on you for
(13:09):
a certain period of time.
And the task is to, to remember that person. You can't deny that person existed.
You can't just pretend it didn't happen.
Have a place for that person, and then move forward in your life,
without letting that grief affect your daily living. Now I have six grandchildren
and it's, it's taken 15 years for my, my son. And it's now been three years for
(13:30):
My husband, we were kind of prepared for, you know, we, we kept thinking, he
I was, you know, we would think he's gonna die then he didn't we. And so when he
finally did die, it was like, well, wait a minute, you know? Right.
He gonna come back. And then he didn't.
But,
so it was a little easier on, on me because I was prepared and I was a caretaker
for the last year, and I was in hospice. So I had been a little more prepared.
But I can truthfully say that I live in the moment with all six of my grandchildren.
(13:56):
And my, that shroud that we carry around with us for a long time is no longer there.
And that's what we work for. We work to be able to live in the moment without that
shroud hanging over us. And it doesn't happen overnight. It happens differently for
everybody. Took me a long time, you know, especially with my son and a little less
time with my husband 'cause I was prepared. But that's, that's the, that's what we
(14:18):
all strive for, is to get rid of that shroud. Those are kinda like letting some light
back in. Yes. You know, the darkness. And then I know grief, you know, it comes in
waves.
You know, I've been through some stuff
and you could be having a great day and all of a sudden it just hits you. Does do
you still get those waves after 15 year? I mean,
yeah.
I not, I used to get terrible waves. And in fact, my husband, my son was a student
(14:39):
at Columbia University. He was a very brilliant student. And,
so for many years, hearing the word Columbia or New York
would set me off just, oh, you know, just into one. I'd be walking along kind of
thinking I was doing pretty good. And then bam, I flat down on the sidewalk and I,
and it was everywhere. If you, if you think about it, Columbia and New York or everywhere,
(14:59):
that's kind of a sneaky one because it's, it is in a lot of places. Columbia, South Carolina,
Columbia, the country, Columbia Glacier, Columbia Shuttle was going on at that time.
And even when I would go in my closet and I'd be looking for some clothes and I'd
see a shirt with Columbia Sportswear, I mean, it was like, yeah, I'm glad I'm wearing
my Columbia sex. You
know,
it's crazy. Yeah. It's just crazy how that works and how it works in your brain.
(15:19):
But I was able to work through that. Of course, that doesn't happen anymore, but,
things can trigger you. And, and fortunately
it this time,
there is a wave, but it, it's not the tsunami that it was, it's a little wave. I
just, you know, I don't, so if I, I like to talk about the grief pit. You know, if
you're, I've been down as many of us have in the bottom of the grief pit with like
one nostril above to get air. You know, you're just struggling and trying to get
(15:42):
out.
and, and I, I have not gone down into that bottom for a long time,
but you're up in the top areas.
you know, I might, I might fall a little bit here and there on an anniversary, but
for the most part,
I'm, I'm able to live in the moment without that shroud or with, in, in the, the
waves that come are not really waves anymore. They're kind of just little ripples.
Right. Mine's a black Friday, and of course it comes every year. And
(16:04):
black Friday, I'm like, yeah, just triggers. But you, like you said, they, they do
get better and you're able to like even say it, you know, or
after a while. Yeah. But it takes a while. And you're talking about building the
legacy, a legacy of love. And when you talk about carrying that person the memory
with you is that, like the legacy you're talking about, you know, the legacy you
(16:25):
wanna build is so people have good memories of fall in love, and then they can remember
you later on your birthday or anniversaries. You can, instead of being down
with the nos, you know, trying to get a little bit of air, you can actually like,
embrace that legacy and that love and actually feel good, you know, feel good in
love and celebration instead of so much grief. Right?
Yeah. And I think for me, what, what what happened is, you know, in the first, your,
(16:49):
the first part of your grief,
it's, it's hard to think about. I mean, and we all grieve differently.
when my son died,
I couldn't go into his room for two years,
but my husband would go in there and sit every night for a while. And, and, and at
first it would kind of
make me a little upset that he'd go in the gym, why are you doing that? 'cause he'd
come out very sad. But that was just how he grieved.
So when you are grieving as a couple, or as a family, it's important to know that
(17:13):
every single person is gonna grieve differently. So my husband needed to grieve by
being there, being in his room. I really, seriously, it was three years, two, three
years, I can't remember how long, but about that time before I even walked into his
room, I, I,
any of his stuff. I, it was just the same as it was before, which is kind of cr crazy.
Most people might think that we let let the room sit there like that for all that
(17:36):
time.
so we might no time kind of stops. I'm sure it didn't seem like three years to you.
It was like yesterday. Yeah, like yesterday.
So it's important for us to understand that everyone's gonna grieve differently and
then everyone has a different grief journey. So you can't expect, and, and I am guilty
of that myself before I went through all this,
to think like, well, you know, it's been two years. Little Mary should be over this
(17:59):
by now. She should be, well, you know what, maybe some Mary's would be over it, but
some are not. And, and there are people, and I think we all know some who
can never work through the grief, can never get task number two done.
They can never work through the grief. And, and that's why it's so critical to try
hard. And I think sometimes we feel so overcome that we don't have the ability to
(18:21):
do that. And I would really like to encourage everyone to just fight it. I,
I learned that from,
one of my husband's cousins who,
about two weeks after Eric died, we were back at work, we're back in our dental office.
And I was in that, I was in the zombie stage, you know, kinda walking around and
I was walking outside of the office. My husband was with a cousin of his, and they
were talking by the car outside.
(18:42):
And my, the cousin came up to me with his finger wagging, and he is wagging his finger,
me, look, I'm a zombie grieving mother, right? Don't wag your finger at me. He was
wagging his finger at me and said, don't you ever let your remaining children feel
that they are not enough. And he just was shouting that he was so emotional. And
it caught me by surprise. And I thought, what? At first I thought, what, what, what,
(19:04):
what are you saying to me? And then I thought, oh my goodness, he's right. And the
reason he was right, and only he could say this, if someone else had said it, it
wouldn't have come out the same way.
But he was right because he had lost his brother
at 19 years old. He'd been out drinking. And
he, you know, he was passed out and his friends thought they were doing him a favor,
put him in the car, left him in front of the house, but this is Minnesota. It was
(19:27):
like minus five degrees outside. And he froze to death in his car
and his parents
could never
get over that. So essentially this young man lost his brother and his parents on
the same day. And he was really telling me, do not let that happen to you. And it
was one of the most important things to, to have happened to me for him to say that,
(19:48):
because when you are grieving,
it's very hard to get out of that pit. And his words made me realize that I had a
husband and two daughters that still needed me. And,
it really gave me motivation when I was down to fight. 'cause you have to fight.
You have to fight and scrape and kick your way outta that pit. You don't just come
out easily. So it takes a lot of effort and a lot of work. And thank goodness I got
(20:11):
the motivation to do that. But I know it's, it's, you cannot ever judge someone with
how
they react to grief.
Yeah. And your pit. I mean, unfortunately, it's like the, the pettiest of the pit
pit. So Yeah. Yeah. To get out of that,
do you think a lot of, of trouble with,
getting over grief is like guilt? Like for why you feel guilty? Like, I feel guilty
if I don't feel pain every day. If I don't hurt every day, I'm just, I feel guilty
(20:34):
for not suffering or for not feeling that. Yes. Absolutely. And, and
it's important for you to remember no matter what now, I'm, I'm again a Christian,
and, and part of our faith is the joy of the Lord. Lord is your strength. So being
joyful is something that part of my faith tells me we need to really strive for to
be joyful. So that helped me. However, for anybody, it's important to remember that,
(20:56):
whether you have that type faith or not,
how would your loved one
want you to feel
six months after, a year after? Would your loved one
want you to be in a miserable pit?
Or would your loved one want you to be out of that pit and happy and moving forward
with your life? And if, if that loved one loved you,
they would want you to be outta the pit and happy.
(21:16):
And, and sometimes, and, and I'm going through this. I work with widows,
and we have a couple widows that have been widowed for a few years and now getting
remarried. And
there's a lot of guilt involved in that. Not only because, oh my gosh, I was married
to this wonderful man, but now I found another wonderful man, and
am, am you know, is that, am I hurting the memory of my husband by being happy now
(21:37):
with this other husband? And, and of course the answer is no. No. And that also goes
with
children. If you have children, I've got a friend that married,
two widows, a widow and a widow,
and they just have remarried and they have children.
And it's hard for the children because they're still grieving their parent. And sometimes
it's hard for them
to see happiness. Like your, your mom moving on to another guy. So now there's another
(22:01):
guy in her life, but wait a minute, you're dad's still dead. You know, she's got
a husband.
But your dad's still dead. Same with the wi the widower. You know, you mom, mom's
dead. My mom is dead, and now you're happy with somebody else.
And it, that's a false guilt. I think we just have to realize that's a false guilt.
And, and you, and whether you're, you know, no matter how you believe spiritually
joy is, is a great goal in your life. And you should not worry about being joyful
(22:25):
after you know, you, you grieve through the process of Yes. And your spouse. I mean,
if your spouse loved you, they would want you to be happy. And Absolutely. I mean,
you know, I always say like, something happens to me. I want you to be happy. I mean,
you know, wait a little bit. But yeah, be happy. Don't, yeah, definitely. And then
with my father,
he'd be mad at me. Of course. You know, I grieve for a while, but then I'm like,
he's,
he'd be mad if I just be mad.
(22:46):
Just gave up on life and just grieve the whole time. So that, that helps too. Just
knowing that they don't want you to be sad or,
you know, I'm sure your son the same way. They don't want you to be, they don't do
things.
This doesn't happen because for you to be sad, you know?
Yeah. So people that love you, that's the last thing they want.
Absolutely. And so you're doing them a disservice in their memory and their legacy
by being sad. Which I, which is hard not to do, but, you know,
(23:07):
give yourself grace and time, but at the same time.
Absolutely. Yeah. I, I had a,
an experience now 'cause I'm, what I'm trying to do, and through this book and through
my life,
I want to make sure that my grandchildren, when I die, don't suffer as much as they
did when their PopPop died, even though I'll have more time with them.
And so I've been working on that, and I've been talking about, you know, sometime
at some point Anna's gonna die too, but I just want you to know how much I love you.
(23:30):
And I'm so grateful for any minute that we have together.
And,
and, but, you know, you wonder how that's gonna affect them. And I know it, I know
this works because I just had my little niece, Heidi,
my little niece, excuse my grandchild, Heidi, who was at the dinner table and, and
I was making dinner. And she looked at me and she goes, Nana. And I said, yeah, honey.
And she said,
well,
if what happened to PopPop
(23:50):
happens to you? And then she stopped. And I go, well, what do you mean, honey? You
mean if I died? And she goes,
Nana, if you died,
could we still go on the Disney cruise? And I said,
and it was like, yes, yes you can.
And I said, I want you to be happy. You need to go on. In fact, when you're happy,
you honor me. Yes.
So I want you to honor me by being happy. And I'm, I'm trying to have that language
with them,
(24:10):
that you honor me by being happy. 'cause I want to help them avoid that grief. And
even, even as a husband, my husband and I, my husband was quite the extrovert. And
he, but he needed people in his life. I'm much more of an introvert. He's, he was
quite the extrovert. And I knew that if I died, he would have to have somebody
To help him. 'cause he would get so lonely by himself. And so we kind of had a joke
(24:30):
in the family, and I said, I, with the girls, everybody present. And we would say,
I'd say, now, you know, honey, you know, if I were to die first, then,
at least don't look for another wife until after the funeral. After the funeral.
It's fairgate. But but don't look for another wife until after the funeral. We all
laughed. But I did that intentionally
in front of the other family members to say,
if I died, your dad is gonna need to find another wife because,
(24:53):
he just can't
live on his own. That way they know he had your blessing. So they had my blessing
better. Yes.
And you could even put that in your paperwork. Right?
in your book, if you felt like you needed to, you know, if you, you know, if you
needed to let your kids know that it's okay.
right. That we knew that. And I think that's important too, because I find that,
especially I'm older than you, and so I, I am, my peer group has a number of widows,
(25:15):
and it is really an issue and a problem. The guilt that they feel if they were to,
you know, become involved with somebody else. I tend to be, I'm not expecting that
to happen because I'm, I'm an introvert, and I kind of see, to me it's like, okay,
life is easy now because
I can take care of myself and I have my family. And if, you know, if I were to go
and find another a man, then, then I, now I have to share that family. And then,
(25:36):
you know, so that's kind of how I'm thinking. You never know what's gonna happen.
But I'm not really planning that. I don't really need that, but my husband would've
needed to marry right away. And you tend to find that more men get married a lot
faster than the women after. Yeah, that's, that's what I hear. They, yeah. Yeah.
They're used to having a, a wife take now, you know, take care of 'em or be there
for them and Yeah. For sure. And us ladies we're kinda like, I could be
(25:58):
by myself a little bit, like, get my dog. Yeah. I get my dog. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
And, and so with the,
preparing your own legacy or not, not just say legacy. So give love and all that
good stuff, and memories and fondness. But as far as the se the paperwork and the
serious, the legal stuff
in your book, you have a checklist, right? Of what you recommend having done. And
(26:19):
recommend doing, do, do you recommend doing that, like on your own, like on a software?
Or do you recommend just getting a lawyer? It just kind of depends on how, how big
your financial estate is at that point. And
well, getting a lawyer for the will is really important. And you need to have a will.
It's, it's, I just had a friend that graduated my class in high school who died without
a will. And her family,
(26:40):
they're, they just don't even know what to do. There's no money for the, the, the
funeral. They don't, they, they, they're, they just have, they're, they're breaking
apart right now. And
when you have that type of thing happen, you open up your,
You open the family up to conflict. So, and it certainly, I don't blame her for not
doing that. In fact, most people don't have a will across our country. Most people
do not
she wasn't expecting to die. I mean, when she's 85, she might've gotten her will,
(27:02):
but she wasn't expecting to die. But it causes so much stress with her family because
she was not prepared to go. And so the will needs to be done with an attorney because
every state is different.
So you need, you know, there's some things online. I'm not sure how well they work,
but at least have something.
I would go to an attorney and, you know, we, we all are, nobody likes to pay for
attorneys. You know, we, because they're a little, they're, they are expensive. But
(27:24):
this is one expense that's really important because it might prevent your family
from going through conflict after you die. And, you know, one thing I I tell my girls
is that the biggest, my, my biggest joy
is the fact that they're very close. They're both attorneys. And when my husband
and I wrote our will we send it to them first before we signed it and said, okay
(27:44):
guys, here's the will. Look it over now, and if you don't like something, let us
know now, or we can change it. But once, once we sign it forever, hold your piece.
I mean, you know what the, you know, what's going on. And then I've taken,
like my jewelry, things that I think, you know, there might be some question about.
So I had my jewelry lined it all up, and I had one girl, you know, pick one piece
and the other girl picked another piece. And we just went back and forth, like picking
(28:05):
team for softball. They picked a piece of jewelry, wew wrote it down, we put it in
the back of the wheel. So I'm trying to do everything I can to make sure that they
have a, you know, that, that they keep, the biggest gift in our family is that they're
close to each other and all the great, yes.
Grandkids are close. And they're, I hear those stories all the time. It's like, oh
my gosh, I hope, I mean, I would never want my family to fall apart. You're already
torn apart. Like, that's the last thing
(28:26):
you need at that point.
And then a will's not you. People think of a will as like listing every piece of
jewelry, which is great. List all of your assets like that. But
I think the most important thing is what I'm learning now through my mother taking
care of my mother-in-law's estate. She has two sons. So I'm taking care, you know,
helping them.
And
the will actually just gives you power to actually do something, or else you can't,
(28:47):
your hands are tied. I mean
the state or whatever, just take has everything and it's like, could be years. And
just having that piece of paper has been a lifesaver. And she, luckily she had a
file, everything's like nice and organized and,
you know, there's a few things that we planned on doing that we didn't get to do
because she passed away before we did that. Just kind of like the, you know, titles
of the house property, that kind of stuff
(29:07):
that we were going to do, especially after reading your book, it was on my list.
I'm like, okay, we're gonna do this. And
wow. But luckily shed most of the stuff together.
It's an act of love. I really believe that,
putting this document together, putting this binder together,
to make it easier for you is an act of love, because you're gonna be going through
so much difficulty anyway, just the, the grief.
You know, grief is one thing. Then having to manage all the legal stuff is another.
(29:27):
And what happens when people die without a will is the people that get the most of
the money are
if you look at some families that might have had a, a large inheritance, but there
was a dispute,
and there, if there's a dispute, then really the attorneys end up getting most of
the money and then whatever is left, you know, little leftover. So it's like, what,
you know, both daughters are attorneys, but I don't really recognize you, you know,
(29:49):
tell your daughters to plug their ears. But do you think the attorneys kind of like
feed the fuel, feed the fight, like keep fighting? Come on, that's,
yeah. And it, but that's what, you know, that's their job. You know, if you're,
if you're on one side and you say, well, I believe this is what I need to get, and
they're gonna fight for you, but then they're gonna charge for it, and the other
side will fight and they'll charge for it. And it might be perfectly rational charge,
but over time, over years sometimes. And then you have to go to court and set a court
(30:12):
date and the court date, you know, might extend again and again, it sometimes takes
years to work through these things. Not to mention just the heartache. I mean, I,
I, I just know of so many families where,
and, and many times there families where maybe there was a second marriage involved.
And,
and then there are difficult feelings that's always gonna leave, you know, it, it,
it, it leaves a lot more,
possibility. Yeah. Dispute if there's a second marriage, and then who's, you know,
(30:36):
is it, it, what, what was left for my mother's estate and now I have a stepmother?
And basically then the step Yeah. Then the step kids get it all. Even though it was
your side. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, we had funny, we had a funny thing with our family
when we were, because I said we talked, you know, we talked about what would happened
when we died. And I talked about Jim waiting for the funeral before he looked
because we knew that Jim would need another wife, we had a, our dream home, our dream
(31:00):
retirement home was a cabin. And when we, we put the cabin actually as a trust in
my name,
and then Jim could live in it the rest of his life. But if I died, my children would
get the cabin. The reason we did that is we said, you know, if Jim remarried, which
he probably would, then we would want the cabin. And we all agreed when everybody
was alive, we would want the cabin to go to our children. And, and, and, because
(31:24):
typically what would happen is if Jim died, everything would go to the new wife.
And then when the new wife died, she may give it to all to her children, you know,
and our children might be left out. So those are important things to think ahead
and do,
before you die. And then it's all worked out because that's, that's where the lawyers
get involved, especially in, in stepchildren and things like that. Almost. Yeah.
(31:44):
Almost. Especially if you're
Yeah. Remarried. I could see that for sure. And then your pets too.
there's a c clause in the will too. Figure who's gonna take care of your pets and
Yes. And make sure that they want them.
Yeah. I inherited my best friend's dog, so it's like,
yeah.
But of course I love dogs and there's, you know, there's a reason. But yeah.
Gotta think, you
you have to think of all those things. And it might not be that same dog you have
now, but you, you know.
Right. And even the title of your car, you know, when if they wanna sell
(32:07):
you paid it off. So I have that all, that's all in my binder. The title's in my binder,
my social security cards are in my binder. My birth certificates are in my binder.
The wedding certificates are in my binder. Jim's death certificate is in
my, my dream is when I go that they take the book and they don't ever have to look
further. You know, they, they know all, and, and yeah. And passwords. Just having
the passwords she had to book too, with all the passwords. It helps so much because
(32:29):
you can actually go into the accounts and close 'em out or let them know, or,
you know, and it's so much easier than having to wait months. And then you're still
build all this, you know, utilities, everything that somebody's life is still in
full motion when they die
and they're still being charged. So you need to be able to get to that information
and stop that information. And all you wanna do is lay down and cry. But you, you
(32:50):
know, that's kind of why I'm doing it for the boys. 'cause you know, it's their mom.
For me, it's not as hard. I mean, it's hard, but yeah. Somebody needs to go in there
and take care of the stuff, or they're just gonna get
Right. And you can't procrastinate. You just can't procrastinate. 'cause it just,
things just pile up. If you do, you have to get rid of the credit cards, get to cut
them off
and yeah. And so, one thing that's really interesting, I, I think our society is
(33:11):
starting to kind of catch on a little bit about this,
is that there is a, there's an app on,
on phones now called the Legacy app, where you can, you can,
put the name of the person that, that can have access to your phone and your password
when you die.
Okay. Kinda like Facebook, how they have legacy. Yeah. Okay.
So I think that's really important to make sure you have somebody,
in line for that so they can have, they can get to your phone and have access to
(33:34):
your phone. Now I've just given my, my girls my password. They own know my password
because my
grandchildren figured out my password a long time ago. So, you know, it's no secret
anymore. But I just,
when I go, they have my password and they get into my, into all.
Yes, yes. Yeah, that's super important.
So any, and then, okay, I, we could go on about this forever. There's so much information
that's so important,
cleaning things out too, because,
(33:55):
I think I read in there, was it you that it's a hoarder or your husband or, yes,
I know a lot of people that hoard stuff and Yes,
like my mom's always trying to gimme stuff. Sorry mom, I love yourself. And, and
you don't wanna it, do you? No, but it's so great. I'm like, so great. Wear that
brand new shoe. Never wore so great. Why don't you wear, I'm like, I know. Yeah.
And I'm the same way. I'm like, I should see if somebody wants this when I'm thinking
that nobody wants that. But
(34:17):
I know. Okay. So that is hard. Okay. As a baby boomer, that is so hard because we
saved up our China and the beautiful China that we're going to pass on. Is it heirloom
down to the generations? This is our dream, right? Well, it, it's, it's a dream that's
gone bust for most of us. And we have to realize that. So our challenge is baby boomers
is to understand that,
(34:38):
anything that we have left, when we die, somebody has to clean up.
Right? So I really recommend getting rid of as much stuff as you can before you go.
And I face that challenge. I, I call myself a closet hoarder and that my, you know,
everything looks fine in my, in my rooms. And rooms are really good. But if you try
to open a closet, you know, watch out, something's gonna fall out on you because
I throw everything in the closet. So I'm working and I'm cleaning them out. I'm,
(35:01):
I'm taking care of my closets. But most importantly, we had a second home.
we had a cabin. And the cabin I talked to you about before that was the prime, the
jewel in our family. That was our, our most important possession was this beautiful
lake cabin that we had built for our retirement. And had Jim stayed alive, we would
be living in that cabin. It's a beautiful cabin, but when I'm living alone, it's
(35:22):
four hours away from one grandchild, one, one set of grandchildren and my daughter.
And then, then now it's 13 hours away from the other. And it's just too far. Because
I, I live, I go back and forth to my grandkids 'cause I just love to keep up with
them. So it was too far from the grandkids and I wasn't living there. And I did a
little, I rented it out, you know, did some short term rentals and that was fine,
(35:42):
but it was still very expensive. It's a expensive piece of property. There was a
lot of lake lake property there. And what I was doing is, is I was actually working
longer and the reason I was working was to keep the cabin because even though it's
paid off, even though I rent it out, the cost to rent it out, pretty much,
wipe out
The cost that it takes to maintain it. 'cause I have to have cleaning. We have to
(36:02):
do laundry. We have to, you know, all these things to keep it going.
So
I, I told, I mentioned to the girls, 'cause my dream, just like your mom's was that
the kids will, and this will be the family cabin. 'cause we built it up from the
ground up. This is our family cabin. And my grandchildren will be in this cabin and
we'll have so much fun in this cabin.
Well, my daughter's married husbands whose family's also had cabins that were much
(36:25):
closer than our cabin.
So all of our grandchildren had the cabin experience. Right.
And so I, I said to the kids, okay guys, anybody who wants the cabin, I'll just give
it you and you can just take it over. And they're like, we can't afford to keep that
cabin.
We, it's too expensive, mom. We can't afford to pay the taxes. And the, the, you
know, the insurance is really high and we can't afford it. Mom.
(36:45):
and it really took, it, it kind of took the wind outta me for a little bit because
that was our dream. You know, our dream is to be in this cabin.
And,
it was our dream for many years.
And I had to come to terms with, okay, this is not gonna be a cabin that's inherited
from my generation down. So what am I gonna do about it? Am I gonna continue
to maintain a cabin that the kids don't want? Or am I gonna just sell the cabin to
(37:06):
live off the pro proceeds? Right?
So I did, I sold the cabin.
and however, there was a lot of storage area in that cabin. We had a lot of things,
in there. And my, my
son-in-Law, and my daughter had told Jim and I that we were not allowed to die until
we cleaned out that shed. 'cause there was a lot of stuff in that shed. And of course,
Jim didn't listen to him and died. Anyway, so it was up to me. And so I did it took
(37:29):
some time, but I cleaned that darn thing out. And,
it says a little bit more to do. We have things in pods that we're gonna take care
of this summer, but by the end of the summer, I will have really divested myself
of pretty much anything I didn't need.
And the reality is, it is so freeing for me. I didn't realize this. It was a hard
process to, to go through. And it's, I think, as important as children to realize
(37:49):
it's really hard for your parents to part with that stuff. You know, I still had
all the, you know, the, the little,
papers that my children had drawn when they were three. And you know, I had boxes
of, you know, pictures when pictures, you know, were paper not on,
on my computer. So I transferred those over to a little, you know, little,
well, a flash drive. I have 'em all in a flash drive. And,
(38:10):
and I've downsized and it's very, very freeing. And so I'm really challenging my
generation
to clean up their mess because it's not fair for me. It would not be fair for me
to make my kids
clean all that stuff up, because it really did take a long time to clean that shit
out. Clean. You should think you're passing on gifts, but really you're passing on
a burden. I'm passing on.
It was a treasure to me. Right. But it was junk to them. And so I had, I had to get
(38:34):
over that, especially the China and stuff. Although I, what is it with baby boomers
in China, there seems to be a lot of,
a lot of China. Oh my goodness. Yes. Well, we, we see that we, yeah. You know, for
generations, if you had China, that was a symbol of, of affluence, right? So you
got a China pattern that was beautiful, that was a symbol of affluence. And you'd
have beautiful ch dinner parties and
so on. And I would have that for all my kids' birthdays. We'd have a, we'd have a
(38:58):
formal setup in our dining room for birthdays and have big dinners.
and it's something that my kids feel is just a big burden and there's no place to
put it. So I have to learn to adapt to the fact that they don't want it Now. They
get out paper plates and stuff. That's their big, big dinners. Yes.
It's just stuff. And to get rid of it, and I'm, I am learning that lesson. It is
(39:18):
hard.
getting this folder put together was a big monkey off my back because I thought,
oh my gosh, if I were to die, my kids would have to, you know, do all this to try
to fix. Yeah. And you just feel better. Like, just even me just having a wheel and
stuff going on vacation when my kids were little, it's like, yeah, I just felt better,
even though, like, still be safe, but just, I don't wanna leave. And yeah. Something
happens to you, you just wanna make sure everything's taken care of. Yeah. Yes, exactly.
(39:41):
We would call our kids on the plane. Okay. Now I just want you to know this is where
the will is. I know who you're trying to have fun,
mom. I know. Yeah. Well, so,
so could people buy your book or is it, yes, the book is, are You Ready? How to Build
a Legacy to Die For?
And it's available on Amazon. In Barnes and Noble. It was the number one bestseller
on both. So,
you can, you can get it on Barnes and Noble or Amazon.
(40:03):
Yeah. So there, and
at first, I must say, when they came up and they were talking about death, I forget
what the title was and I was kinda like, you could tell everybody in the rumors.
It's kinda like,
because like you said, nobody wants to talk about it. So I was like, oh no. Like,
I don't, if I hear it, it could happen. It could make, it makes it real. It's like
a reality. And then I was listening to you and I was like, whoa, your story. And
then I was like, well, she's right. She's right. And something that
you don't necessarily wanna hear, but you need to.
(40:25):
we have to face our fears. That's part of life. You have to face your fears and death
is real and it's gonna happen. And so we have to face it. And if we truly love our
children and our grandchildren and the people that go behind us,
this is our job.
We just need to do it. And it, but it's hard. And so I don't judge anyone that doesn't
do it because it's a hard thing to do. But I think for, for, for me, it's been very
(40:47):
freeing. It's been freeing process.
Yeah. And I think it will be for everybody. Well, thank you for coming on today and
sharing your story and information and I hope somebody,
I hope people get some information out of this and they can,
yeah. Help them as well.
Thank you so much for,
appreciate it.
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