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059: End of life admin
487 Plays3 years ago
Life admin can be stressful at the best of times but for people who are terminally ill or caring for a loved one, the admin related to end of life can feel overwhelming and relentless.
In this episode we chat with Anna Bolitho about some of the practical matters people need to consider including:
- getting your estate planning in order
- Advance Care Planning
- using digital platforms to get your paperwork in order such as iDecide and My Life Wishes
- making time to allocate or pass on sentimental items
- the importance of not only documenting your wishes but also having a conversation with your loved ones about both your wishes and practical matters
- planning what might happen to pets.
We also chat about the practical side of communications and helping out during someones’ end of life including:
- thinking about the different circles of communication
- the tools you can use for communication including WhatsApp groups and facebook groups
- digital tools to help with setting up rosters for meal delivery and pet walking such as Gather My Crew
- providing projects to people at their end of life to keep them busy and connected with their community.
We also talk through the practical side of funerals including:
- things to consider when choosing a funeral provider and package
- understanding the different elements of funeral packages before you visit the funeral director (eg will you provide your own flowers?)
- being creative in planning your funeral and including personal rituals (eg bring a coffee cart, fly a kite, serve champagne, give away your book collection)
- considering a life celebration, to celebrate someone’s life before they pass.
LIFE ADMIN RESOURCES
Episode 44: Planning your digital estate
Episode 11 – Drafting wills and powers of attorney
Websites/Apps to assist with Documents and Passwords – iDecide and My Life Wishes
Apps and Websites to help with rosters and communication – Gather My Crew
Care of pets – RSPCA Home Ever After program & Community Aged Care program
Australian Centre for grief and bereavement
Office of the Public Advocate – for guidance on medical treatment decision-making and advanced care directive
Reference List – Your Final Checklist from Dying to Know
Reference List – It’s Ok to die when you are prepared
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Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook or Insta pages to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.
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Transcript
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Meet the hosts and podcast introduction
00:00:30
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips, and tools to tackle your life more efficiently, to save your time, your money, and to improve your household harmony. I'm Dinara Roberts, an operations manager who definitely wants champagne served at my funeral.
00:00:49
Speaker
I'm Mia Northrop, a researcher, coach and writer. It considers my funeral plan to be my last opportunity to exercise my inner control freak.
Interview with Annie Bellitho on end-of-life planning
00:00:58
Speaker
In this episode, we interview Annie Bellitho, author and funeral celebrant on the practical side of end of life. Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks. Most of our listeners are in the sandwich generation. We're caring for young children and have aging parents.
00:01:14
Speaker
And one in three of us already does life admin for an adult parent or relative on a regular basis. Many of our listeners have already had to deal with admin from the death of a loved one. And we've all got contemporaries, friends, family, colleagues who have lost a parent, partner or child. We're recording this with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging on causing so much illness and millions of deaths. And while death is certainly something none of us can avoid indefinitely, it's sure come into stark focus over the last two years.
00:01:43
Speaker
are all likely to be carers or family members who need to help a loved one prepare for their end of life or perhaps have to deal with our own end of life preparation. This is somber stuff, but it's important and we trust you'll find this episode enlightening and ultimately empowering.
Why plan for end-of-life early?
00:01:59
Speaker
So in this episode, we talked to Annie Bellitho who revealed, people often struggle to have the conversations about the practical side of the end of life. She also told us what life admin to attend to in advance during an illness or after an accident or incident and after a death and how to plan and choose when it comes to funerals and considering your options in advance. This is something we will all have to deal with at some stage. So listen in to help you be more prepared and confident.
00:02:29
Speaker
Dr. Annie Bellitho is author of Death a Love Project, a guide to exploring the life in death and finding the way together. She provides workshops and consultations that help people take charge of their end of life arrangements and have great funerals. With long experience facilitating conversations that matter, she makes realistic dialogue about the emotional and practical aspects of death and dying easier. She runs workshops that help individuals focus their planning around end of life,
00:02:56
Speaker
and for health professionals whose clients are dealing with death, grief and loss. As the organizer of Deaf Cafe Melbourne, Annie's run over 25 deaf cafes, face to face and online. Annie, thanks so much for coming on the show.
00:03:09
Speaker
Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here with you. Look, life admin can be stressful at the best of times, but for people who are terminally ill or caring for a loved one who has a questionable or hopeless prognosis, life admin related to end of life can feel overwhelming and relentless. We're so glad to have your expertise for our listeners.
00:03:29
Speaker
Look, I couldn't agree more and I think the very words life admin, just throw it into that very practical arena where people tend to think of end of life totally in the emotional side. The practical is really so important and having the practical under control makes the emotional a whole lot easier.
00:03:54
Speaker
Oh, definitely. So how did you come into this line of work? Oh, look, when my father died, my siblings and I searched cupboards and files looking for his will and wishes. And we were in our early 20s. He'd been chronically ill all his life, and we just could not believe that he hadn't left anything in place. We rang around, you know, had he mentioned anything to his lawyer and so on.
00:04:22
Speaker
And finally, we had to give up and begin the process of acting without instructions. And look, I can say that wrapping up his life in those circumstances
Avoidance and attitudes towards end-of-life planning
00:04:33
Speaker
left a decades long legacy that, you know, I wouldn't want anyone to have in their family life.
00:04:43
Speaker
You hear about that a lot in terms of it causing friction potentially between the loved ones who remain and often it can become the burden of one particular person and it's a lot to carry. That's so true and I'm glad that you mentioned how much closer in the COVID circumstance has brought end of life because you know it certainly is a time where people are well advised just to give the matter a little bit of thought.
00:05:13
Speaker
So what have you observed about people's different attitudes towards planning for their end of life? Well, I think my dad, you know, it's typical. People are actually quite superstitious. You know, if I think about it, it's going to happen. If I do something about it, it's inviting something bad.
00:05:32
Speaker
I think that's quite a common thing at a subterranean level. Obviously everyone's different and, you know, people who come to me, you know, come in many different circumstances, you know, like you said.
00:05:47
Speaker
at the start someone gets a diagnosis and they see the wisdom of touching in on these topics just lightly and then they might come back you know possibly seven or eight years later to do stuff in more detail. I have people who are single coming because you know it's a lot to think about and it helps to think with another person that includes
00:06:14
Speaker
People whose partner might have dementia or perhaps the partner just doesn't want to talk about planning and they realise how important it is. I do see people where it's gone really badly and they need to debrief.
00:06:29
Speaker
Some people are just really savvy. They just understand that getting stuff in place is going to help their family later. It's really interesting in terms of that mix of people who are quite pragmatic about it and just get on and do the planning and the others who are superstitious and think, if I think about it, it's going to come or it's going to exacerbate the situation and everyone who sits in between.
Importance of estate and digital asset planning
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I don't think anybody would think of themselves as superstitious by no means. And yet, because we are so death phobic in our culture, a lot of our values and thinking about it lie at quite a subterranean level. What are people's main areas of concern when it comes to end of life arrangements?
00:07:16
Speaker
So look again, everyone's different. You know, there's some people who would hold a funeral and cost is absolutely no issue. Then there are those people who either just don't have the money or they really want that money to go to a good cause or to their kids or something. And so those people really need advice. It's very hard to have a funeral under $10,000 if you really
00:07:44
Speaker
don't know how to do that. You know, a lot of people do want to think through burial or cremation. Of course, nowadays, cremation is very popular and it's quick, it's simple and everything. At the same time, I find that when people have an opportunity to really think through what constitutes a meaningful end of life,
00:08:08
Speaker
It helps them to think on that topic. Similarly, they might want to think about, will they be in a coffin or a shroud? Some people want to think about the environment, how to offset the cost of disposing their body in terms of carbon. Some people, and I think this is wonderful, really want to think about their family relationships.
00:08:34
Speaker
So it's very different if you've got two people looking after someone's end of life, or you've got a family of like six or seven kids where everyone has a different opinion. And again, that's very helpful to think through that ahead. So when you've been helping people, what are things that they've talked about that they'd wish they'd sorted out earlier?
00:08:56
Speaker
Look, I tend not to talk to people too much about that kind of retrospective thinking. I suppose the closest I could come is the death cafes. I hold lots of people who come to those, bring some kind of legacy. And I suppose one of the things a person related a couple of years ago was how
00:09:23
Speaker
you know, they simply didn't know
Role of funeral directors and planning
00:09:25
Speaker
how to talk to a child about that. And it was a circumstance where that was incredibly important. Some people there talk about
00:09:35
Speaker
you know, simply the family having gone right over the reality of what's happening and how costly that was on relationships. Are there a lot of things? Yeah, it's interesting that the kinds of conversations that make a difference to family and friends who are going to be affected by the death and how to navigate those and the timing of those, it's very delicate. You sound like you've had an experience.
00:10:03
Speaker
Knock on wood, not directly. My ex-husband's father passed away last year. His grandmother passed away a few years earlier at the ripe old age of 101. His father had a long illness before he went, and so yes, this was a topic of conversation within the family. On a certain realm, there was a lot that was still subterranean, as you said, but yeah, it impacts everyone in enormous ways.
00:10:27
Speaker
So I guess on your website you said earlier, things go more smoothly at end of life if people are informed about relevant basic practical matters. So let's get into some of those practicalities that people have to consider. Step us through the milestones. Perhaps where would we start? Would we start with estate planning? Oh look, a lot of people do take care of their estate planning.
00:10:51
Speaker
And that's a kind of obvious thing to do. You know, people think about property and, you know, they think about that as a way to make sure that there's fairness. I don't find people don't do that too much. Similarly, advanced care planning, there's a huge amount of promotion that goes into that these days.
00:11:14
Speaker
lots of courses through hospitals and local government and so on. I'm sorry, I was going to say, so for listeners who don't know what advanced care planning is, could you explain it please? So advanced care planning is a recognition by the government and hospitals that many people's first conversations about what they want to have at the end of life actually take place at the hospital would be much better if the person arrived at the hospital.
00:11:43
Speaker
knowing what they wanted to happen. So there's a lot of investment in people making plans that highlight whether they want to be kept alive in certain circumstances or not. Generally, the specifics
00:12:03
Speaker
of if you're in hospital with dire circumstances what you'd want to have happen. So you know a lot of people step through that with their doctor before they try and do the forms and that's really good and you know people I think are getting a broader understanding of the importance of that.
00:12:24
Speaker
So that's really interesting to keep in mind that when you're thinking about estate planning, it's not just your wills and your powers of attorney. This is the time to think about a medical decision maker, advanced care planning, and things like organ donation, your digital assets.
00:12:40
Speaker
Is superannuation beneficiary all of those different dimensions? Absolutely. And I think digital assets are of significant importance to people in their mid-20s to the end of their life, basically. And I
00:12:57
Speaker
Read recently that McAfee, the security company, did research that indicates that worldwide the average value people put on their digital assets is $35,000. So, you know, if you've got a website, an Instagram, a podcast, you can well see how important it is to make plans around that for clarity. Yeah. And for listeners who want to delve a bit more into their digital
Digital tools for end-of-life management
00:13:27
Speaker
legacy side of things we did an episode on digital legacy so episode 44 you can listen into that one as well. That's fantastic and I think you know the area that people perhaps find most mystifying is funerals. What happens to the body you know people just want to know talking of milestones
00:13:47
Speaker
that, OK, the person's died, what happens next? And many, many people have no understanding that you don't have to call a funeral director immediately. You can spend time with the person, you can
00:14:02
Speaker
wait, whether you're at home or in hospital. And that makes a great difference to be able to just gently say goodbye. People have very little understanding of the role of funeral directors. You know, one of the big ones is that they're able to care for the body over an extended period of time, you know, so you don't have to have a funeral within three to five days.
00:14:28
Speaker
you can leave the body there for a week or two whilst you make plans and that's especially relevant if someone dies suddenly. People tend to think about before death and at death there's also the time after you know and it's not so much that I'm thinking of grief and grief processes but you know the kind
00:14:52
Speaker
question of how you want your legacy to keep informing your family and people around you. I think it can be so special if you put thought to that so that people
00:15:06
Speaker
can keep connected to you. You know, the person dies, but the relationship doesn't. You know, you want to keep that relationship alive so that people can touch base, you know, and not feel like they're weird to have a chat with you. It's perfectly normal to have a chat with someone who's dead, you know, you can ask advice.
00:15:28
Speaker
I like to think we've all done that. I like to think we've all had a quiet word to her and then I'll grab her or someone who's like to get them caught up on the tap day of the day. Exactly. I met a woman at a cemetery event a while back where she actually takes the newspaper to her father's grave in a deck chair and she reads in the paper. It's so lovely. Yeah.
00:15:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's certainly something that pops up in TV and cinema a lot as well. It's kind of a useful, useful trope. Before we go down that, get into that, that end of the thing, I want to bring us back to earlier, I guess, in the, in the process where you are thinking about you're still sort of in that planning mode. One of the things that we've talked about is sort of all the account management that needs to happen. So if someone's incapacitated or they're terminally ill,
00:16:22
Speaker
you want to be able to access important documents and bills and policies, like either close accounts down or transfer the ownership so that people can access them if required. And I did, I know there's the Ideside platform by Rochelle Leahy, and she developed this platform as a way to document, capture documents that might be to be accessed afterwards. She talked about
00:16:47
Speaker
after 2DS and her family, how when they were planning to sort of, they called it Jason Bourne-ing someone. And this was that, you know, Jason Bourne's that fictional book and movie character, who's like, they wanted to remove the paper trail so that, you know, in his, as a fictional character, I think he's a spy, I don't know, he's like an assassin or something.
00:17:08
Speaker
And he's going to disappear essentially. So they talked about this process of making it easy to transfer and close accounts while someone's still with us, rather than after the event when it can get really bureaucratic and hard. Yes, I think that's so important.
00:17:25
Speaker
Quite a lot of digital platforms of that kind now because it's possible and it's a growing area of business. There's one called My Life Wishes in the States that's huge. And similarly, it's enabling you to outline all the things she talked about and to do it when the person has capacity.
00:17:50
Speaker
And I suppose I just want to stress that, you know, every expert in town at the moment is saying that it's very tiring to deal with uncertainty. And that's so true when people are unwell. It's just exhausting. And doing this kind of stuff is demanding. When I try to get all my stuff in order so that I can walk the talk, it took me over a year to actually be sure that I'd covered it all.
00:18:20
Speaker
And people who come to my workshops, they're kind of thinking that they'll come to the workshop and it'll all be done and dusted. No, I try and reassure them that they should not feel bad if it takes them a
Emotional decluttering before it's too late
00:18:34
Speaker
long time. It really does take time to get this stuff in order.
00:18:38
Speaker
whatever platform you're using. But you have to think about it, you have to know what you want. Look, you don't have to convince us how long it takes to get life admin under control or whatever, wherever you are in your life. But yes, this process of like closing or transferring, you've got to think about your bank, you've got to think about your super and if utilities are in someone's name, like insurance,
00:19:01
Speaker
even things like, you know, loyalty programs and frequent flyer points, like you need to use them or transfer them because they're going to be gone once your, no longer will be lost. That's what I love about your work. You know, there's our kosher, it's an aged care kind of umbrella body. They have an excellent list on that for people who breathe to just work through all those things. But nonetheless,
00:19:28
Speaker
People often don't have passwords and stuff like that, so it's very important to get that in order. And even when you step away from some of that official stuff, if you think of just around the house, whether there's like appliances, do you know how to use all the appliances or the heating or think about
00:19:48
Speaker
who's been doing what when it comes to driving and kid logistics and finances. So if you want that degree of continuity afterwards, have to have that discussion. It's a very difficult discussion to have, but I think it's absolutely valuable to know what actually makes the wheels go round and how to be sure that that can happen.
00:20:13
Speaker
You know, when you say stepping away from official stuff, a lot of people keep projects and things that have been very important to them and to other family members. And it's important to know what you want to have happen with them. And I guess another area to think about is, you know, personal and sentimental items that you might have.
00:20:36
Speaker
thinking about decluttering them or handing them on to people with meaning before it's too late? Yeah, and I think that can be a satisfying process. There's almost always someone who's auntie or grandma pulled out the post-it notes and just asked everyone, just put your post-it note on what you want. That's very clear. And
00:20:59
Speaker
At the same time, they're people for whom it's really difficult to decide what to do.
Palliative care vs hospice care
00:21:06
Speaker
And it's actually, I have people come to death cafes who say they didn't mind that, you know, they ended up having to work through stuff, but it was a way of working through, you know, their loss as well.
00:21:19
Speaker
making sure that things were taken care of. So, you know, I think it's not all bad if people don't have that under control, but of course it's terrible if people have been hoarders, you know, and then really it becomes necessary to call in specialist services and those services are
00:21:41
Speaker
expensive and there are a lot of conversations in there. I cannot emphasise the conversation highly enough and you know my book certainly emphasises that those conversations are going to make a difference because even if you put stuff on paper it's helpful if people are just all fake with what's important.
00:22:02
Speaker
It's definitely a value of both documenting and having the conversation. Yes. And, you know, for people who find it difficult to start a conversation, and almost everyone dies, you know, being able to like refer to a movie star or something like that, like Aretha Franklin, her will was not clear when she died. And it's just been this epic saga. And
00:22:29
Speaker
You can actually find online an example of her handwritten will that was found under the sofa cushions. You can see how hard she tried to think about it. It's got all these notes pointing this way and that. So, you know, it is good to be able to bring in something like that that just softens the territory before you go there.
00:22:52
Speaker
So I guess when we get to sort of the pointy end of end of life, we're sort of thinking about if palliative care is required or hospice. Actually, could you talk us through the difference between palliative care at home and hospice?
00:23:08
Speaker
Victoria Hospice is not a feature of the health system. There are a couple of hospices which people tend to take advantage of if they don't have people to care for them. But otherwise home palliative care is much more the norm that services will come to the home.
00:23:29
Speaker
That's obviously been quite tricky in COVID times. All people will be admitted. So in the US, hospice is huge, but it isn't so much here. And palliative care is basically the kind of care that's going to improve your quality of life. So people can begin
00:23:50
Speaker
using palliative care services when, you know, they're not at death's door, they're rather just struggling in some way and could use better services, medications and so on. Yeah. So when people are in that situation and might be receiving palliative care at home, there are, you know, services that can, or websites like Gather My Crew, which can help people
00:24:16
Speaker
create rosters to help out, provide meals and things like that. Have you found any other sort of practical things that can help people at that time? Look, I think one of the things that can help most is a WhatsApp group because WhatsApp's so commonly used for that kind of thing. People don't have to go onto another platform. There's different circles of care. So you've got the most intimate of people who
00:24:43
Speaker
are probably coming and going. You've got the circle outside that where people are, you know, probably if they could be coming and going, they would. And then you've got the circle outside that. So, you know, I think closed Facebook groups play a very important role for that circle that's further out, just so that people can keep informed and send messages and stuff like that. I think
00:25:10
Speaker
in the kind of times we're in now, the fence is a lovely thing, you know, if someone's ill at home for people to just come and put stuff on the fence or leave stuff there that people can pick up, you know, having that kind of sense of a physical interface.
00:25:30
Speaker
Some things that people have found quite helpful are little projects that, you know, some people just like to still have something to do and be useful when they're not well and, you know, we'd say
Support systems for end-of-life care
00:25:45
Speaker
dying, but everyone's well alive until they're dead.
00:25:50
Speaker
This one woman I worked with, she loved community and community gardening. And one of the things she did, she made a lot of bunting, which is very simple, just putting fabric on strings. And then people took that bunting and did stuff with it. You know, it kept her feeling very connected. And it gave a topic, you know, that what
00:26:16
Speaker
people might do with it after she died. I think things like that are wonderful. Shrouds are fabulous that way as well, you know, that if you've got a simple shroud, whilst the person's still alive, people can be working on it, adding little patches or I think letter writing cannot be underestimated. It's just so fantastic. If you're not in that inner circle of care,
00:26:44
Speaker
and you want to really talk to that person, do it, put it down on paper, write everything that they've meant to you. And, you know, in the quiet, that person can receive that. That's sort of the ultimate bucket list, isn't it? It's those things, those projects and tasks that just be a nice sort of way to go out, have these things achieved, like the last contributions.
00:27:10
Speaker
I wanted to go back to spend a little bit more time on talking about setting up rosters and working out who can help out with cooking and how you do keep people informed. Who usually organizes that? You could use WhatsApp, we could use a closed Facebook group. How do those things usually come about? Look, I think it's like any other community development initiative. Things happen when there's someone. That someone says, we must do this and they do it.
Taking care of pets after passing
00:27:40
Speaker
It's not something that easily happens just because it's a good idea. And I think, you know, that does make the platform a bit easier in that people, you know, someone might put it up and have some involvement, but not need to be as involved as with rosters. Yeah, I can't kind of say that people have more energy at that time. They have less. And it really does take
00:28:08
Speaker
people who have community focus and a family focus where they take the running on things like that. So it's where you really value the family members or friends who will take the initiative and make the suggestion to actually get some of that going and to set up the various groups and sort of establish some protocols around how communications happen.
00:28:32
Speaker
I think it can be quite overwhelming for the people who are at the center of this to have to keep communicating the status of their loved one's health and what the situation is. So definitely think putting something in place as you talked about for the different circles, the very close circle and maybe
00:28:52
Speaker
the next few layers out makes a lot of sense. And I think, you know, one thing also to bear in mind is that whilst it's fabulous to have those kind of people, there's no judgment on anyone else. Everyone is doing their best. I think that's something you just really need to have in mind. Everyone's got different circumstances, different capacities, and everyone's doing their best.
Choosing and personalizing funerals
00:29:18
Speaker
Annie, what have you observed in terms of the way people deal with pets? Look, that's a wonderful topic. Pets tend to get well thought of because they're so important to people. A number of pet charities take animals for people who can't pass them on in their families and friends. One thing
00:29:43
Speaker
to have in mind there is you also have to make a legacy to that pet charity because they're going to be looking after the animal until it's rehomed. I think that for most people that pet is so important
00:30:00
Speaker
that family members know that and tend to try and find someone like mine. My sister has a wonderful cash that came out of those circumstances because the granddaughter knew it just had to have the right home and that was very reassuring for her grandma when she died.
00:30:20
Speaker
We're aware that the RSPCA has a community aged care program where they will look after or come and visit the pet and make sure it's getting its attention and walks. And they also have a home ever after program. So they will rehome and they'll work with you to understand what kind of future owners, what kind of future family might be appropriate and look at rehoming.
00:30:44
Speaker
your pet. Good piece of mind. That's right. And that's why that leaving some money to them is part of the picture. It's quite a process. So we talked earlier a bit about planning funerals and that there's no need to rush, but also that it can be quite an expensive thing to pay for.
00:31:03
Speaker
What other things or processes and how should people go about thinking about how to choose a funeral director and other things that they're going to have to decide about? A lot depends on the circumstances. If the person is dying over a period of time, obviously it's easier to do that and to involve them. If someone dies suddenly, I think it's very important just to hold your horses for a little while whilst you
00:31:32
Speaker
come to grips with the situation. Many hospitals and aged care places have preferred supplies in terms of funerals, so it's good to know who you want. For me, the most important thing, because a lot of people I deal with do want a cost-effective funeral, is that they
00:31:53
Speaker
deal with an independent funeral director rather than a corporate because they are generally much more flexible around which services you choose to have and which ones you don't. It's important to be aware that funerals are provided as packages.
00:32:11
Speaker
So a package provides a lot of different elements from the coffins through to the kind of car, the coffins driven away and the flowers, the catering, all those kinds of things. And so it's important to know what you don't want. Like you can bring flowers from home. You don't have to pay several hundred dollars for a bouquet.
00:32:36
Speaker
But, you know, you can go on the website of some of the independent funeral directors and actually see what all those elements are. I've also got that in my book so that you can actually make your choices ahead rather than
00:32:53
Speaker
I just hear so many stories of people who arrive at the funeral director. They're absolutely beside themselves. And, you know, spare a thought for the funeral directors. They're dealing with someone who actually does not know what they want. Is it anyone that they might lead them towards some stuff? It's really important to know. So that's something I think is very important.
00:33:19
Speaker
I also think that it's so important to think about children. It's just something that can make a massive difference. Children benefit from being involved. And the more charged the family has over the funeral, the more scope there is to involve children. And we're all children in a way. You know, so if people see children feeling comfortable, they feel more comfortable as well.
00:33:49
Speaker
You know, I think we need to know that children can take in reality when they're well supported. It's a very important value for me because again in my death cafes I hear so many people.
00:34:04
Speaker
who had someone important die and would deny that experience as children and it just stays with them for the rest of their lives. So another thing I think is important to think about is ritual and how simple ritual can make such a difference just to you know on a zoom funeral to think of one unifying factor
00:34:28
Speaker
can make a great difference to how people feel about being together, if it's a funeral in a chapel or a home or a park or wherever people might hold it.
00:34:42
Speaker
some small simple unifying ritual. You know, the children all come and they light a candle. It's what helps people to find their experience meaningful. You know, I think a good funeral can help people to understand their friends and families so much better and to
00:35:04
Speaker
actually get quite a lot of joy. It's a nice thing. So just having a little bit of thought about that ahead, you know, not comprehensive, but enough to kind of guide the process can be really useful.
00:35:20
Speaker
they're lovely things to think about Ernie and I know that I've been to funerals where you come away with a much better sense of who the person was and you get the full relay of their whole life. You might have known them for just a certain period or a certain season and you get this
00:35:35
Speaker
the full experience of them and some of the virtuals associated that were just so beautiful and it does feel like a celebration. I think one of the things Diana and I were talking about this we're preparing is photos, people choosing photos and videos to show at a memorial or during some kind of ceremony. It feels again like one of those charged activities that people
00:35:59
Speaker
might feel overwhelmed doing, like having to choose what footage or what photos are going to be shown in this very important day. Oh no, I think it's something almost everybody's looking for something to do in that period and
00:36:14
Speaker
It's a wonderful way of having chats and stimulating memories in the process. I think that review of photos is fabulous. And it doesn't just have to be photos. Some people do lovely things like say someone collected books. They might go through a range of the books and bring them to the funeral for everyone to take one that they want.
00:36:42
Speaker
Again, it's just looking at what was important to people. Oh my god, I love that.
00:36:49
Speaker
I love that idea. I definitely want that in my funeral. I was just thinking back to the episode we did about wills and statements of wishes. And we interviewed a lawyer and I asked him, could I have it in my will? And it would be my cremations, the remains be shot out of like fireworks or something. And he didn't like that. But the books, the books might be more feasible. Give away my book collection.
00:37:15
Speaker
And, you know, people are really very limited in their thinking about funerals because we don't think about them. We tend to just have this one model. But, you know, if it wasn't COVID, there's no reason why you can't bring a coffee cart to a funeral.
00:37:33
Speaker
You know, just have something that brings that everyday delight in. You know, you can fly kites. Lots of things that people choose to do if they have a bit of a chance to think about it. I think they need to serve champagne at my funeral.
00:37:53
Speaker
I'm sure they will. Diana might forgive us if there's no champagne being served. Exactly. Lightweights. And also, you know, bringing stuff from home can be wonderful. I did a funeral a couple of years ago and they literally dragged out every pot plant this woman had ever had.
Post-death paperwork and tasks
00:38:19
Speaker
And they arranged them in this. It was done in a community hall and it was like you were coming to her garden. It was gorgeous. And people do things like that. They bring the motorbike or whatever. I have also heard of people having a party before they die, as opposed to having a big ceremony after the funeral. Have you heard about people doing that as well, Annie? I've actually had one myself.
00:38:47
Speaker
I think a life celebration like that.
00:38:50
Speaker
is fantastic. And they've actually increased in popularity during COVID because, you know, you can bring people together on a Zoom in a very intimate way. No one's in the back row, no one's in the front row. And there are a lot of ways in which you can use photographs, music, the opportunity for specific tributes that perhaps speak to certain periods
00:39:22
Speaker
are very, very satisfying. So I guess back to some practicalities around the paperwork side of things. You know, someone's died, the doctor or the funeral director would have generated a death certificate. There's the Australian Death Notification Service, which is a government service where you can provide the
Emotional and financial support resources
00:39:42
Speaker
death certificate numbers and they'll notify certain kinds of businesses and organisations to start closing accounts or, you know, removing them from jail.
00:39:42
Speaker
in the person's life and yeah I think they
00:39:51
Speaker
But then I guess it's also time for you to sort of think about, well, not just now, but, you know, all the resources that are available for emotional support and resources for financial support as well. Yes. Look, when it comes to emotional support, I think a lot of people actually only need to know that it's going to be a period of grieving, that it's not going to be forever, but it takes time.
00:40:21
Speaker
some people get through without any kind of specialist support at all and you know very often I think people need help with the practical things at that time as you've just outlined and you know with food and gardening and helping with kids and things like that but if people do
00:40:45
Speaker
want to get grief support. The National Centre for Grief and Bereavement here in Melbourne has very good services and there are many psychologists and therapists who specialise in that area, but I don't think it's something that people need to leap at before just settling into the experience of grief. When it comes to financial help, this is an area where I
00:41:14
Speaker
actually really in touch with people. So probably better if you outline that for people. When it comes to financial support, Services Australia is your one-stop shop really for government payments. You might be eligible for a carer payment or a carer allowance. And you can also look at things like youth allowance or parenting benefits. So those are definitely places that you might need to reach out to depending on your circumstances.
00:41:41
Speaker
And there are exemptions from the activity tests associated with some of those payments while you're grieving.
Contacting Annie Bellitho for support
00:41:48
Speaker
So they're not expecting, you know, if you're on JobSeeker, they're not expecting you to go out and try and find a new job when you're in that grieving period. There's one website that I would have liked to have mentioned in relation to advanced care planning, but it also goes for some of these things and that's
00:42:06
Speaker
the Office of the Public Advocate. Because they advocate for people with disability and people who have less capacity, they provide very comprehensive resources on how to deal with advanced care, medical decision making and services.
00:42:26
Speaker
Great. So we can link out to the Office of the Public Advocate, as well as the other resources we've talked about in the show notes. We also found some handy checklists that we'll link to, sort of preparation checklists that might be useful for people. Annie, thanks so much for sharing your expertise and experience with us today. It was fascinating and useful and moving in equal measures. Where can our listeners find you if they want further support?
00:42:52
Speaker
If you'd like to reach out to me, you can find me at my website, anniebelifo.com.au. And I have my book on the site as well. It's got heaps of practical information. You can get the discount by putting in the promo code PAWS.
00:43:11
Speaker
And yeah, I hope that you wouldn't hesitate to make contact because really it's very enriching for us to dialogue on the subject and make sense of what's such an important mystery in our lives. Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeandminlifehacks.com. And if you're a fan,
00:43:36
Speaker
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