Gina Vliet, Death Educator

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm really excited to announce that we're going to have a five part web based series called from stress to success. These sessions are going to have lots of discussion about these areas, and again, really practical things that one put together create a great path towards not just surviving, but thriving in challenging times. The topics are managing burnout and emotional labor, thrive, having through long term stress, protecting your sleep, creating spaces of vulnerability for yourself and your team, and finally, energy management. The conversation about mental health has never been more open than it is now, and we have an opportunity to go even further with that. I think back to my time as a therapist, and sometimes it felt like we had the secret combination that could really help people that really wasn't being broadcasted out to enough. So why don't we take this next step together? Please follow the link and I hope you'll join us. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Once you start to acknowledge that you're mortal and you start measuring from the end, the things that don't matter can fall away much easier. You get rid of a lot of things in your life that just don't matter. And I think that's the blessing that comes from acknowledging our mortality. And I really wish that people would be able to see that. That the sooner they do that, the sooner they can improve the quality of their life overall and reduce that stress. [00:01:29] Speaker A: That was a clip from today's guest. I have lived a really fun and full life. I'm always on the move. I get to travel a ton. I've built up businesses. I've been able to do a lot of creative stuff. My life often feels like a whirlwind, and it's been mostly a really cool ride. But within that, as I'm, you know, I'm hitting 50 this summer, I'm like, oh, damn, I'm going to die. And when I say I'm going to die, it's not imminent. It's just the real recognition of, like, oh, shit, at some point, I actually am going to die. And it's the first time in my life, like, this kind of past, like five or six ish years, where I've really been thinking about it and starting to prepare. Like, well, what would that look like? What kind of legacy do I want to leave? What can I do here? And the more aware I become of it, the less ability to plan for it. I feel I have, like, there's so many big questions. The interesting thing is that I have a colleague and a friend that I've known for a long time who's a death educator, and I always have seen her posting on LinkedIn, all this cool stuff, and I'm always liking it. But just recently, I was like, I got to talk to Gina about this. It's cool just conceptually, like, understanding this role that she has created. And this industry is kind of like, what I'd say is maybe an emerging industry, this business that she's built. But also, I learned so much in this episode. So if you are someone who's comfortable with death, listen to this. If you're someone afraid of death, listen to this. Because we don't go into any gory details, but we really get into it. Like, we really talk about what you should do. This is a real fun one. I think it's for everyone. But before we get to that, please rate, review, and subscribe. My name is Aram Arslanian, and this is one step beyond Gina. Welcome to the show. [00:03:39] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. [00:03:41] Speaker A: All right, so, for the uninitiated, for those who don't know, who are you and what do you do? [00:03:47] Speaker B: My name is Gina Belite. I am the founder of Caron Consulting. I am a death educator. So I help people get comfortable with talking about their inevitable demise, if you will. I do workshops. I help people, guide people through planning, pre planning, and executorship. [00:04:08] Speaker A: Okay. There's so much to talk about here, and the first is that you and I are our old buddies. We've known each other for a long time, and it's just great to see you and talk to you and you as well. But when I was looking on LinkedIn, stay in touch on LinkedIn, I saw how you shifted your career, and I was like, I need to know more about this. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Well, funny story, 2017. I got laid off from my energy job and was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, wasn't sure, and took a little bit of a break, got bored, and decided that I was going to start my own company, my own consulting business. And I originally started out thinking that I would go back into some of the project management, change management stuff that I had been doing in my corporate life and decided maybe that wasn't quite what I wanted to do anymore. So I melded some of my loves. I'm a bit of a polymath. So I melded my love of old dead things as a former archaeologist and anthropologist and my love of change management and decided that I would become a death educator and consult on how to navigate the change. One of life's biggest life changes, which is death. [00:05:29] Speaker A: So was this a thing that existed beforehand? Is there like a death educator industry, or is just this something? You were like, I'm a death educator, and now that's a thing. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Well, and that was a hard thing. It's like, no, I kind of invented my own role when I started investigating what I could do in the death industry. It's like, well, I don't want to be a funeral director because they're on call 24/7 people don't generally die on a schedule. And I didn't really know if there was any other roles in the industry that would suit me. And I was seeking a label that was already existing. And when I kind of landed on what I wanted to do, after talking to funeral directors and funeral homes and death doulas and people like that, I was like, no, I want something slightly different. And I was in a small business class, and one of the women there was an executor advisor. She was a certified executor advisor, and as she was introducing what she was doing, navigating the paperwork and the legal and taxation end of things, I'm like, that's what I want to do. I want to meld my project management and change management skills with my fascination with mortality and thanatology and end of life stuff. And it just became, what do I call myself? Death project manager kind of was a bit of a long title. So I also have a lot of background in training and education and instructional design. And I was like, hey, I want to design my own workshops and just teach people what they need to know to get them to the finish line. [00:07:07] Speaker A: And so you created this term, this title, and you planted your. [00:07:15] Speaker B: And, you know, funny enough, I did meet another death educator who works mostly with individuals. I generally tend to work with groups and educate groups, but her name is also Gina, funny enough, but she's one of the few death educators that I've met. There's been a few over the years because I've been doing this now for five or six. You know, there's more that have come and put their spin on it and things like that. We see a lot of funeral directors. I'm sure you've heard of Caitlin Doty, for example. She's a funeral director who's been big in the death education industry as far as demystifying the funeral industry. And, of course, death doulas are becoming more and more popular end of life doulas. But, yeah, I just kind of wanted to forge my own path, do my own thing. [00:08:06] Speaker A: I love it a. I love people who bet on themselves, and I love people who kind of, like, take risks and create their own thing. This area specifically is like, of all of the people I've interviewed and all of the conversations I've had and all the people I've met professionally, I'm like, I have never heard of someone doing something like this. And a, it's just like, I love talking to you, but b, it's like, I want to talk about this thing. So let's just say, let's start with. Just unpack it for everyone as a starting point. Why does someone need a death educator? So if there wasn't a death educator, what would be going on? That would be the problem that your services would be the solution for. [00:08:49] Speaker B: So the problem that I solve is, or the problem that exists if someone like me doesn't, is that people come to the end of life unprepared. And I hear a lot of times people say, well, I'm not really going to care because I'm going to be dead, but it's the people that we leave behind that have to clean up that mess. So the problem that I solve for people is helping them prepare for that massive life event that is death, that is inevitable, that everybody is going to face. So I think it's important that we acknowledge our mortality and that we view it as something that is inevitable. And preparing for it is going to help us get on living life. I mean, the cool thing about being a death educator is it allows, when people plan for their inevitable demise, it allows them to live better. It allows them to focus on living, as opposed to that underlying stress we have about end of life and planning for end of life and what comes next once we're gone and the people that we've left behind have to close out our life. [00:10:01] Speaker A: It's interesting. Everyone knows they're going to die. Everyone does factually know they're going to die. And it's like knowing two things as being equally true. You 100% know you're going to die, and you 100% know you're never going to die. You factually know you're going to die. But actually recognizing yourself as no longer existing is, like, unbelievable. Most people can't wrap their heads around that. So you know two things as being true, but only one of them is true. And depending on where you are at life, where these two truths kind of, like, rub against each other is kind of an interesting idea. So I'm about to turn 50. I'll turn 50 this summer, and I really only started to wrap my head around the idea that I actually, of course, I've known I'm going to die ever since. You understand what death is as a little kid, but really understanding that I actually wasn't going to be around. I didn't really start wrapping my head psychologically around that until I was in my midish forty s and I went through a very difficult series of events where I was like, oh crap, I'm going to die. At some point I'm going to die. And that could be two days from now, or it could be like 50 years from now. So it's no wonder that people don't talk about death from a first person perspective. They talk about death, but they don't talk about their death or want to plan about it. And I don't even know if it's from an avoidance point of view, but more so from. It's like it's inconceivable that I won't exist anymore, even though I actually know I won't exist. [00:11:33] Speaker B: It's interesting, there's always that underlying stress and what happens and what you're experiencing is you're starting to measure your life from the end instead of from the beginning. And what that means is that we are starting to acknowledge our mortality and seeing things as a little bit more limited and that reality is becoming more clear. It's a gift when we do this and there's a piece in the middle of our life where we just don't acknowledge it. But it's a nice gift because once you start to acknowledge that you're mortal and you start measuring from the end, the things that don't matter can fall away much easier. You get rid of a lot of things in your life that just don't matter. And I think that's the blessing that comes from acknowledging our mortality. And I really wish that people would be able to see that. That the sooner they do that, the sooner they can improve the quality of their life overall and reduce that stress that they've got. Because it's always in the back of our mind. [00:12:35] Speaker A: We know that people could be not talking about death and not planning for death and not being in a kind of a death preparedness state of mind. Maybe because of avoidance and like anxiety, fear and all that, but also just like from. Without any ability to really wrap your mind around that you're going to die, you know it, but you just can't actually take that in. And not even from an avoidance point of view, you just can't think of it. It's almost like, you know, the number 1 million exists. But if I asked you to imagine what 1 million rubber duckies look like. You just couldn't do it. Like you just couldn't wrap your head around it. So when you are working with clients, how do you manage those two states? Some are like anxiety avoidance, fear avoidance, talking about death where others are just like, I literally can't wrap my mind around it. [00:13:27] Speaker B: That's a really interesting question because when I first started my business, that was the roadblock that I kept hitting, is I wanted people because I was ready to do the pre planning end of things and knew people needed it. Trying to convince people they needed it and they weren't there yet. There generally has to be some sort of catalyzing event to get people ready to talk about it and to be that personal and specific. So what I learned was to pull back and talk and think about death from a perspective of philosophy and theoretical. So when we approach it softly from that theoretical and philosophical point of view and we invite it into our lives in a little bit more gentle way without it being so personal, then we can start to build that relationship with our mortality from a safer place. And I think that's something that I've learned over the years, is let's start with the theoretical and the philosophical, and then we can work up to now, how does that apply to me, me personally? [00:14:33] Speaker A: This whole topic is fascinating to me because around end of life preparedness, I had a friend in the past few years, like a real good friend of mine, who had a family member that they weren't close with who had passed away and was prepared and had left quite a large sum of money to be distributed across the family. And they were prepared, knew in advance they're going to go. Kind of had a sense of how long I've got left to live. Their mental faculties had declined as they got closer. And when they passed away, there was pretty strong instructions and it was still a complete shit show. Like, after they passed, it's like people like, this person's trying to steal money and this. And the family devolved into just battle. And this friend of mine was telling me about it, who was relatively detached from the whole thing because they weren't close with that family member and weren't close with the rest of the family, but they themselves, without intending to, was going to benefit largely. They're going to get quite a large sum of money. And they were like, oh, my God, I feel like I've suddenly got like 20 enemies that I'm sort of distantly related to. So that's like someone who had really planned for their death and knew well in advance. I can't imagine what happens if people don't have that. [00:15:58] Speaker B: Well. I always tell people when I'm talking about planning for end of life, it's like we're weird about death and we're weird about money. And when you put death and money together, the weirdness expands exponentially. And what you think is a loving, caring bunch of people is going to devolve, or you get the other way where you have a family that's not close and this can bring them together. Every situation is different with the lack of a will and with the lack of a plan. And even more importantly, doesn't matter whether you have a will or not or a valid will or not, because some people have wills that aren't valid. The most important thing and the most critical piece is communication and transparency. So whether you have a will or not, letting your wishes be known is going to mitigate some of that stress that people have, whether they have a will or not. Like, get it out in the open, talk about it, share the will, talk about what your final wishes are for your end of life care and for distribution of your assets and all those kinds of things. And that's going to help mitigate some of that, because what's happening is people are going through a big change, and, oh, they get all the feels, right? They've got all the feelings, and they don't know what to do with it. And so when we talk about it, it gives people to integrate that change a little bit easier and a little bit sooner, so that when the event occurs, things don't get quite as weird sometimes. [00:17:32] Speaker A: So if someone's preparing for death, what's the role of? Okay, so let's say you go to a lawyer, you get a will, but what does an executor do? And is it necessary? Or is that just like, if you get a will, do you automatically have an executor, or do you have to do something in advance? What do you do here? [00:17:47] Speaker B: So the executor is kind of like your death. Power of attorney. So in life, you have a power of attorney. So generally, when you fill out a will, you fill out a power of attorney. The person is responsible for your finances and your assets. When you're alive, an executor does the same role. They are responsible for distributing your assets and closing out your life after you die. So they're the ones that are legally and financially responsible for your financial footprint on the earth. After you leave financial and your digital footprint once you leave this plane of existence. So their role is to follow your wishes to the best of their ability and to the best of your estate's ability. So they're distributing your assets, closing out your know, shutting down your Facebook and Instagram account, erasing your browser history. That's the role of an executor, is to make sure that your assets are taken care of in your life. Your debts, your taxes, all that kind. [00:18:52] Speaker A: Of stuff is taken care of, Mike, I promise. I'll raise your browser history. [00:18:57] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:19:00] Speaker A: I'll do that for you, man. I'll do that for you. So what is a death doula? [00:19:06] Speaker B: A death doula is an advocate for the dying. So, a death doula is someone who takes care of the physical, emotional, and spiritual well being of someone who is actively in the process of dying. So more heart centered care than, say, what I do, which is more death project management, paperwork, and legal and taxation type stuff. Their role is to be that voice for the dying, to be that bridge between professionals and family, and be the voice for the dying and help the dying manage the passage with a little bit more peace and kindness. [00:19:45] Speaker A: Yeah. So you exactly went to where I was going to go. It's like, okay, this is what an executor does. This is what a death doula does. So I love how you explain it. And when Monica shared the brief from your conversation, it was like, oh, a death project manager. That makes a lot of sense. So could you explain your services and really explain that aspect of it? [00:20:07] Speaker B: All right, so, as a deaf educator, what I do is I run workshops and educational sessions, whether they're presentations, lunch, and learns, or workshops to small groups of individuals to talk about various aspects of either planning for end of life or planning for executorship. I sort of informally refer to it as life hacking and then death hacking. So figuring out what to do while you're still here and then figuring out what to do after. So the workshops are generally 2 hours in length, and we do really practical stuff. So it's about learning what you need to know to make really good, well informed decisions about what you need to do. Whether it's for your advanced care plan and your personal directive, whether it's for your will and preparing to write your will or to discuss your will or have those important conversations with your family. Whether you're trying to choose an executor and you are not sure who would be a right fit for the job, because it is a big job and has a lot of legal responsibility associated with it that most people don't realize whether you are an executor and you don't know what to do now that you've got the title and the role. I'm there to help. So those kinds of things, anything related to the change that comes with death, I can take care of and help inform people about those items. One of my most favorite workshops to facilitate, and is also very popular, is body, organ, and tissue donation and how those particular aspects of end of life intersect, how you can make sure that your wishes are known. What order do you have to do them in? What paperwork do you have to fill in? What considerations do you have to think about when you're thinking about whether you want to be an anatomical gift or whether you want to donate all your bits and pieces, whether it's to science or to someone who needs them. [00:22:13] Speaker A: I'm going to relate this in a way. I'm going to make an OD comparison, but anyone who's listened to the podcast will know that I do this often. I'm going to talk about being in a band. So this sounds like to me, it's like when you're preparing for your first, let's say, international tour, where are we going to get our merch printed? Do we need work visas, places? When do we have to have our passports? Who's going to drive us? Where are they going to drive us? What do we do about our finances? If we're carrying money, do we put it in the bank? Do we do bank transfers? How much do we have to pay our booking agent? Where do we get our x, y, and z? All of these things where you're like, hey, I know how to go on tour. Like, I know how to play a show, or I know how to get into a jam room, plug in my guitar and play with my band. I know I figured out how to go down the street and play a show. I figured out how to go on tour in North America. But if you're planning on going on tour in Europe, it's like a totally different thing, and you really need to understand how to manage that thing. I generally, I'm going to say this very lightly, know how to live. I know how to pay my mortgage, pay my taxes. I know how to go to the bank, where to get my groceries, all of the general stuff. Do I know anything about death, which is part of life? 0%. Except that I'm like, that will happen at some point. So this makes like, incredible sense. Why isn't this an industry? [00:23:39] Speaker B: I think because it's such a taboo subject as a change management professional. One of the things that really struck me, and the reason I really wanted to combine change management with end of life planning is because death is a big change. And the things that we go through with change, well, there's an emotional component to it, but why don't we do this? Why isn't this an industry? I think it's because we, as human beings, are meaning makers, and we like to know things, and death is like the ultimate unknown. We can't control it. We don't know what's there. And so from a change management perspective, we don't want to go there because it's really uncomfortable, because we can't know what's next. [00:24:26] Speaker A: How do you find clients? How have you built up this business? [00:24:33] Speaker B: Well, I started out early days. I set up a death cafe, which is a global movement. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Death cafe, but for those of your listeners who aren't, it's a global movement. It's in over 80 countries around the world. It was started in London in 2017 by a gentleman named John Underwood and his mother. And it was to provide safe space for people to talk about death and dying, because we don't have anywhere in society where we can do that, where it's comfortable. And the whole idea is to provide a safe space to allow people to talk about whatever is on their mind about mortality and about death and dying. So back when I started my business at the beginning of 2018, I started by setting up a death cafe, not to find clients. That's against the philosophy of Death cafe. But I wanted to know what people were thinking about. I wanted to know what was going on in the heads of people who were thinking about mortality. So I started a death cafe. I started a class called Death literacy just on meetup. And it was a twelve month program. So every month we tackled a different topic related to big life changes, of which the biggest one we talked about was end of life. So we talked about wills, we talked about executorship, we talked about vacation planning and emergency contacts. We talked about emergency funds for big life changes. So I started with the death literacy classes, which I ran for two years to sort of gather more information. And from there, I went and reached out to public libraries, municipalities, seniors associations. And eventually the word just got out there that, hey, there's a death expert out there. CBC started calling me every time they had a topic around death and dying. I'd get a call, hey, you're our death expert. Why don't you come on CBC and talk? Know death and dying from your perspective, whether it was municipal graveyards and cemeteries, or whether it was during COVID there was a discussion around what do you do when somebody has died? You're in a pandemic. You haven't been able to go over for the funeral, and now you're traveling. And that dichotomy between having joy of being with your family again and also having going for a delayed funeral or memorial, and how do you balance that joy of being able to see your family with the sadness of having to acknowledge that someone has died? So lots of different topics around death and dying, and that just kind of got the word out there, and people started reaching out, and that's kind of all she wrote. And, yeah, lots of word of mouth. [00:27:29] Speaker A: I have so many questions. First, I have two ludicrous comments. The first is death cafe. As soon as you said that, I imagined every single goth that I went to high school with going to a coffee shop and being very philosophical, and I'm thinking of this one specific person who used to do this wild dance. All of them are who I think of in a death cafe. Second, was it John Underwood? Did you say who came up with this concept? [00:27:56] Speaker B: Well, actually, the concept itself came from a swiss ethnologist called Bernard Curtaz, who was the first person to sort of have this idea of cafe Mortel. Like a cafe, a salon where people can talk about death and dying. John Underwood adapted it and used the same sort of concept. [00:28:17] Speaker A: Don't you think that's an eerily similar name to Undertaker Underwood? Undertaker. Come on. Come on. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:26] Speaker A: All right. These are my ludicrous comments. Let's go further. What made you interested enough in death to even want to do this? So when I was like, how'd you start your business? You're like, well, I started a death cafe. Not the answer that most people would give to anything. So where did this interest in the topic of death and the comfort with that discussion start for you? [00:28:52] Speaker B: Well, as I mentioned earlier, I do have a degree in anthropology with a specialization in archaeologists, archaeology, which, as I said, is the study of old dead things. So I've always been really fascinated, and I also really like dinosaurs, fossils, other old dead things. But this whole idea of mortuary practices, when I was practicing archaeology, when I was doing that for a living, the whole concept of mortuary practices and what we did with our mortal remains, when we were finished with our magical meat skeletons, what we did with those things through different cultures around the world and the universality of how we both feared death and were also putting rites and ceremonies around that passage and that liminal state between the two. So I had this background in anthropology and this fascination with mortuary practices, not in a gothy way, not in a morbid way at all. I always say, I'm not morbid. I very rarely wear black wearing black t shirt today. But it's more along the lines of the ritual and the thought and the philosophy behind what happens next and what do we do for this massive event in our lives, and why do we do it? [00:30:17] Speaker A: So you had this interest, and you had this early career. So how did you end up working in the energy sector with what you were doing in it? [00:30:28] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Well, I am a bit of a polymath, so my career has been all over the map. And it just so happened that the last iteration of my career, before I started my own business, happened to be in records and change management, change management, project management, data management, and that kind of thing. And I really, really enjoyed organizational change management because I love change, which, by the way, is also a really uncomfortable topic for a lot of people. So I'm one of those people that just gets excited about the unknown. I don't know why, I just do. I just like the imponderables that really fascinates me. So change was something I really enjoyed, and teaching was something I really enjoyed, and mortuary practices was something that just always fascinated me. And I went from a leadership role in doing project work to, how can I take that sort of institutionalized theory and methodology and marry it with something I really enjoy, something else I really enjoy? And that's kind of where my business idea and philosophy came from, was just to put everything I liked together and said, hey, let's see if we can make a career out of this. Let's see if we can do something with this to make some money. [00:31:53] Speaker A: The reason I ask, outside of I think it's a really fascinating thing that you've created, is often people ask me like, well, hey, how did you start cadence? How did you do this? How did you do that? And a lot of it wasn't like me sitting down and mapping out this seven or eight year business plan. I was like, well, I'm pretty good at this, and I like doing this, and I have some education and skill set in this. I think I'll just do this. And it wasn't like some big structured thing that I had planned out. I just kind of followed my gut on what was next, and that's how it happened. It sounds like the same thing happened with you, for sure. [00:32:38] Speaker B: And it kind of just found me like, how I ended up doing, not doing people's independent, like, meeting with people and consulting with individuals and doing their paperwork. It was just kind of like the flow of all of these natural skills and talents that I love to do and sort of picking out. As an entrepreneur, we get to choose picking out the things that I didn't want to do and putting them aside or outsourcing them or delegating them and going, yeah, this is cool. This keeps me wanting to get out of bed in the morning. This keeps me jazzed, this keeps me excited. This keeps me passionate. And as we age, we need things that are going to make us want to get out of bed in the morning and keep us energized, because we can be very protective of the energy that we expend as we get older because we just don't seem to have as much as we used to. [00:33:31] Speaker A: A question that just keeps popping into my mind here, is it a benefit or a challenge if people have a spiritual belief they follow when they're working with you? [00:33:42] Speaker B: I don't think it really matters. Whatever our guiding principles are, I always work on the basis of values. Whatever are your values? And that is actually one of the first things that I point people in the direction of. So it's one of the first things we do when we do death literacy classes is we focus on what are our values. Every decision we should make should be values based, whether it's a spiritual practice, whether it's something else, that's your guiding principle. Your guiding principle is your guiding principle. And any decision you make based on your values is never going to be a decision that you're going to regret. So I think whether people have a spiritual practice and they feel they know what's going to come next or whether they don't have a spiritual practice, and they're like, well, this is the end. And it's very technical and very clinical. It doesn't really matter from the perspective of, you need to make some arrangements to close out your life so that you don't leave a big mess for those you leave behind. [00:34:48] Speaker A: Could you give me an example of a decision someone could make based on their values? [00:34:52] Speaker B: Certainly. Certain spiritual beliefs. Certain religions do not believe in cremation, for example. So they would make decisions on what their funeral would look like and then what their body disposition would look like, or their departure planning would look like based on their spiritual practices, or what their spiritual group believes another one might be, for example, when I'm working with the islamic community and with Muslims, Muslims have a belief in how they divide up their estate. There's a certain percentage that has to go to charity, for example. There's a certain percentage that has to be left as a legacy for family. So whatever your spiritual practices are, whatever your values are, can help guide you making a decision. But it doesn't have to be a spiritual belief. It can be any sort of value that you have. So if financial security is one of your core values because you grew up poor and you can make decisions based on that value for what you feel is going to be a good legacy to leave your family. [00:36:03] Speaker A: In your experience with what you see, what are some of the just common, I guess, rookie mistakes that people make when it comes to death? [00:36:13] Speaker B: Rookie mistakes that people make when they are planning for end of life is they think it's all about what they need or what they want, and it's not. When you are planning for end of life, especially for closing out your life, you need to think about, what do the people need who are being left behind? What do they need emotionally? When you're planning your funeral, you can say, oh, I want you to build me the Taj Mahal, and I want these particular pallbearers, and I want these types of flowers. But really, those arrangements should be based on what the people you're leaving behind need to help them through their grieving process or to enter into their grief. That makes sense. [00:36:55] Speaker A: It makes perfect sense. It's interesting you say that I made a rookie mistake this morning. Monica and I were talking about, because obviously I knew we were having this podcast, so I'm reflecting on it, and I was like, hey, I was telling Monica, like, I don't want a funeral. Don't do any of that. You know, cremate me and throw me in the ocean, like I don't care, or. But maybe that's not what they was. I was in a very me centered kind of way in there, so I was already making a rookie mistake. [00:37:21] Speaker B: Well, and I mean, that's the one I hear mostly. One of my first workshops that I did, which I absolutely love and would love to continue doing them, is death brunches. You get a group of friends or family together. We have brunch, and I provide the infotainment, if you will. I provide. Hey, let's plan our memorials together as a group, because it should be transparent. It should be something that you share with people. And it starts out from that perspective of, this is what I want. This is what I need. I want to be buried. I want to be cremated. I want to be thrown in the ocean. I want to be buried under the apple tree. Whatever it is, it's a starting place and it's familiar. But what we need to do with that is we need to take that and say, okay, here's what I would like. Now let's talk about it from your perspective. So going back to Monica and saying, hey, this is what I want, but what do you need? What's going to help you along this journey? Right. [00:38:17] Speaker A: It's a real interesting way of looking at it because you start with, it's like, well, it's me who's dying. I should get what I want. But it's like my opinion matters the least since I won't be here. [00:38:30] Speaker B: You'll be there in spirit, perhaps, but you definitely won't be there physically to enjoy the catering, whatever the catering may be. [00:38:37] Speaker A: Okay. That's a great rookie mistake. What's another rookie mistake? [00:38:40] Speaker B: Another rookie mistake is putting too much detail into the will. The will should be a very evergreen categorical document that talks about categories of assets and general descriptions. When you get into the detail and you buy a tabletop will from staples and you fill in every detail about every single thing you own. This is when we run the risk of our wills being invalidated because there's too much detail and there's too much stuff that changes over time. Which brings us to the other rookie mistake that people make, which is they create a will and then they forget about it and they think, oh, it's one and done. I've created a will 30 years ago and nothing's changed. And no, a will should be reviewed and updated at the rate of change in your life. So, for example, most people write their first will when they go on vacation away from their children. They're, like, all in a panic about what happens if I die on vacation and what's going to happen to my children. And then they don't think about it again, and then they update it again. Maybe when they downsize or their kids move away from home, but sometimes not. So you can easily invalidate a will because it's 30 years old and your life has moved on and the people that you've named and the beneficiaries you have have predeceased you or things have changed. So if you are going to write a will, make sure that you review it at the rate of change in your life. So when big changes happen, it's important that we review that document, make sure it's still up to date, and make sure that it still meets our needs. [00:40:21] Speaker A: If you had just kind of a real general suggestion of how many years should pass before you review your will, like every two years, every four years, every six years. Because I know you're saying the rate of change, it's like life is changing all the time. What would be a rate of change that would get me to do it? [00:40:44] Speaker B: All right, so there are some critical points in our lives or some things that happen in our lives, and in one of my presentations, I have a whole list. But basically, the rate of change that I'm talking about is you acquire a new person in your life, whether it's a spouse, a child, a stepchild. You gain family or you lose family or you lose people that are close to you. So that would be a big change that would trigger, maybe you need to review your will. You gain or lose major assets. You buy a new house, you buy a new car. You sell the family cabin. You inherit a very expensive piece of art. These are things that should trigger that your assets have changed and that you need to change your will, or at least review it and make sure that your will still encompasses those kinds of details. So when I'm talking about the rate of change in our lives, what I'm talking about is the big changes, the big rites of passage that we have in our life. Marriage, death, graduation, those types of things. You become a homeowner, you retire. Is there a schedule? Why not review your will every year when you do your taxes? [00:42:03] Speaker A: But to do that, do you have to consult your lawyer if you want to make any changes every single time? [00:42:08] Speaker B: Well, I mean, again, it depends on how your will is written, because you can have a will, you can have codices to your will that just need to be initials. Here in Alberta, we have the ability to do holographic wills, which are just handwritten, non witnessed wills. In British Columbia, not so know. So it's different from province to province and from state to state. But do you need to see a lawyer every time you want to make a change in your will? I think that depends on. I guess the technical answer would be yes. If you want to change your will, you do need to see a lawyer, and you don't want to do that all the time. But really, honestly, for the big changes, I think is where it becomes important to make sure that those things are documented legally, things that may cause, as you were talking about drama early on with family members, things that might cause family drama. Like the exchange of assets or leaving of legacy and things that are worth. [00:43:05] Speaker A: Monetary value, for example, I'm thinking of every single person that I know that is, like, around ish, my peer group around their late 40s, early 50s, plus everyone I know who's like ten ish years younger than me. I can't think of one single person that I know, including myself, that's out there reviewing. I don't even have a will, actually, so I'm trying to think of anyone that I even know that has a will or reviews a will, and I can't think of a darn person. So when do people actually start doing this? Or when should they? [00:43:44] Speaker B: Much like when we think about death and dying, there's usually some sort of catalyzing event that makes us think about this. So for different people, it's different things. Usually people start thinking about having a will. Like I said, when they travel away from home for the first time without their children, that's usually a really big one for people because they're thinking about what happens to the children if something happens to me. Does there need to be a catalyzing event? No, but it's usually what gets people thinking about it. So a death, a pandemic. There was a bit of a spike in wills when the pandemic hit, but to be quite honest, any time is the right time to have a will, because we're never guaranteed how much time we have. The other side of that is you can always look at the risk of what happens if I don't have a will. And you can make a decision as to whether you're willing to take that risk or not. So does everybody have to have a will? Well, it makes it easier for your executor in your state, but if you don't have a lot of assets and you don't have a lot of things to leave people, how much is it going to help you to have a will? Lawyers and estate planners will say, yes, have a will. And I do say, yeah, it's a good idea to have a will. However, it's entirely up to you how much you want to risk what happens to your estate. And part of what I do is educating people on this is what happens when you don't have a will. Right. [00:45:21] Speaker A: What does an estate planner do? [00:45:23] Speaker B: An estate planner is someone who looks at your financial portfolio and plans to ensure that most of what you own, your assets, are transferred in a way where they're not going to get heavily taxed and is not going to be a financial burden for the people you're leaving it for. So they manage your money, your financials, generally. [00:45:44] Speaker A: And what happens if you don't have a will and you don't have an executor, but you have stuff like you own a house and you have these things. [00:45:52] Speaker B: Worst case scenario, what happens is the government, when your estate goes to probate, well, probate is validating of the will, but basically when you die, the government will decide who is going to administer your estate and close out your life. So two things are going to happen. Somebody close to you is going to petition to become your executor or your estate administrator, or if there is nobody who steps forward, the government will assign someone to administer your estate. It's generally a government worker who is an estate administrator of many people. And they will use a mathematical formula, an algorithm, if you will, to distribute your assets. After your funeral arrangements are paid for, your taxes are filed, including your death taxes, all your creditors are taken care of, and then whatever is left over, residuals, then the beneficiaries, it'll just be divided equally. There is a formula related to how many children you have. And if it's not your children or your grandchildren, your parents, and there's just a formula. [00:47:02] Speaker A: Did you just say death taxes? [00:47:04] Speaker B: Yes. [00:47:05] Speaker A: You get taxed for dying. [00:47:08] Speaker B: Well, you have a set of final taxes that have to be done. And depending on when you die in the course of the year and how close you are to the regular tax season, or how long the year has passed, in your final year, you may have two sets of taxes, your regular taxes and your final taxes. But basically what happens when you die? And part of the role of the executor is to evaluate your estate on the date of your death. So their job is to figure out what you're worth in the eyes of the government, and then that worth gets taxed. [00:47:44] Speaker A: Part of what probably people don't like talking about this is, it's just like horrifying the stuff that you discover. All right, I'm going to let you in on a secret, but by the time this podcast comes out, it will no longer be a secret. Our good friend Mike, who is behind the camera here, is going to be proposing to his wonderful partner very soon. So, Mike is a young guy. He's kind of at the beginning of what will be a grand journey in his career and his married life. And all this from an end of life perspective. What should our young, wonderful couple be considering right at the beginning of their unison? [00:48:27] Speaker B: That's a good question. So this can go one of two ways. The interesting thing about when you partner up is that if there's no will, your partner basically gets everything, unless there's previous marriages and relationships and children and all that other kind of stuff. So if Mike and his partner decide to do nothing, all of their assets will be joint, unless anything will be transferred over right to his partner. Now, if Mike decides that it would be a cool idea for him and his partner to get a matching wills, if you will, is there anything really that they need to worry about? It's kind of like a prenup. You have to decide whether that is something that you want to plan for or not. But here's the catch. If at some point there is another spouse or partner down their way because of there's been a parting away or whatever, then if there's no will, then there can be additional claims on the estate. So if you want to protect that, where your assets are sort of transferred to when you die, if you die. When you die, then it's good to document. If it's not really a concern and you're not really worried about it, then don't worry about it. You get to assess the risk and what works best for you. [00:49:59] Speaker A: You've given Mike an early weding present. It's really kind of you. Mike has a question. Is it possible to give my stuff away before the man gets his piece and divides up my assets? Is there a way to circumvent know? [00:50:13] Speaker B: That's a very good question. And part of estate planning and part of what estate planners do is figure out the best way to transfer your assets so that there is less going to the government. And, yeah, that is possible. There are some things you need to be aware of in terms of. It needs to be formally documented. So it needs to be documented that you are gifting something to someone so that they don't get slapped with capital gains tax, which is when you leave something to someone, let's say you have a family cabinet and you're leaving it to your offspring, they're going to get dinged with taxes. I mean, death and taxes and change are all inevitable. So somebody is going to get taxed for it. How you transfer goods from yourself to someone else defers the taxes in different ways. It doesn't make them go away, it just defers them. [00:51:10] Speaker A: If the CRA is listening, I just want to say, that was Mike's question, not my question. I am a tax abiding canadian, but I also like that information. All right. Do you have anything else to say? Before I go to my next line. [00:51:25] Speaker B: Of questioning, there is a small caveat, a small warning with that if you start giving things away willy nilly because you're in the throes of dying, that can come back to bite the recipient in the butt if it's not documented and the transfer isn't formal, because one of the roles of the executor is to gather the assets, evaluate the assets of the estate, and if those gifts or those transfers are not documented properly, then they might actually have to be clawed back, and that would be really awful. So document, document, document. [00:52:06] Speaker A: Okay. So, Mike, if you come bearing gifts, I want you to have, like, a letter with it as well. Man. We'll get it in 4k. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'll do the same for you. All right, I do have one more question, because we're not trying to just get a bunch of free advice from you. I actually want to hear about your business. I do have one more question. You had mentioned if there were previous relationships. So let's say someone has gone through a divorce and there wasn't a preexisting will or anything like that. So someone has a new partner and a will, and they had never had a will before, and they're properly divorced from a former spouse. Can a former partner make any claim on your current partner's? What would be in that will if there was not a preexisting will before that? [00:52:59] Speaker B: Oh, you got the tough question. So here's the thing. There's always going to be. By the way, I'm not giving anybody legal advice. I'm not a professional. I'm not a lawyer. But the short answer is, it depends. People can always contest a will. Always. Right? So whether it's documented or not, people are going to contest if they want to contest, and that's just going to happen. Whether they'd be successful or not really depends on many factors about how it goes through the court and what claim they might have on that asset or that thing. So having a will is going to be in the favor of. No, this is how I want. This is how the estate is to be divided. But it still leaves the door open for people to contest the will. And people do contest wills all the time. [00:53:54] Speaker A: Messy, man. Death is messy. [00:53:57] Speaker B: So it helps to have things documented, just like with gifting, it helps if ever somebody is going to contest something that's written in the will or something that's been done. So if Michael decides to give away and gift everything he owns before he dies and whoever might be named in the well or whoever might be a beneficiary, whether he has a will or not, might come back and say, no, that's not your stuff, that's the estate stuff. And I get part of the estate. Having that documentation is really critical. And this is a big part of the work I do is talking to people about how do we make sure that our wishes can be followed with the least amount of resistance. And one of those things is document, document, document. And the other is discuss. You have to talk about it and you have to document those wishes. [00:54:52] Speaker A: Okay, this is great to know. Okay, let's get back to your business. You had mentioned that you work primarily with groups, is that correct? So tell us about the standard kind of workshops that you offer. [00:55:08] Speaker B: Certainly, yeah. So two hour workshops, because that's about as much cognitive load as most people can handle in one sitting. Basically, they are practical applications. So it'll start with, I like discussion based workshops. I'm not a PowerPoint person. I don't like to just stand in front and be the sage on the stage, so to speak, and just tell people stuff. I like it to be very interactive. I want to respect the wisdom and the information in the room. It generally starts out as a discussion based, where we talk about, hey, what are you here to learn about? And then I will present some information and a path forward. And my philosophy is simplicity. Basically anything you can do over a cup of tea or a pot of tea, keeping it very simple, very short, something that you can do that's not going to take a month of your life. And remember, when you're planning for end of life, you have the rest of your life to do it. So it doesn't all have to be done on a weekend. It doesn't all have to be done once. It should be an iterative process. And as you change, your wishes are going to change. So a workshop with me is going to be an opening discussion, some information sharing, some talking about your roles and responsibilities, the risks and your rights, because rights are very important to me and being able to advocate for yourself and know what you're getting into. So roles, responsibilities, risks and rights. Then we talk about what's your plan of action? So what can you do that's simple and small to move yourself forward? I don't believe in self help tourism, coming to a class or going to a class and going, oh, that was nice to know, and then going about your life and not doing anything about it. I really want people to come out of a workshop with me going, I can do this. I can do something to get me towards my goal. It can be a little thing or it can be a big thing, but I have a very clear, articulated plan on what the next step is. Yeah, okay. That's kind of what my philosophy is and how I roll. [00:57:22] Speaker A: So do you work with, I know it's a group setting, but do you have people who do multiple workshops with you, or do they come to one workshop? How does that work? [00:57:33] Speaker B: It's really funny. I have people that have come back to the same workshop over and over and over again because it's discussion based. They're going to learn something new every time because I do work with the same organizations year over year, semester over semester. I have people say, I don't care what you're teaching, Gina, I'm just going to show up. I'm going to learn something new every time because one of my roles as well is to make sure that I'm always updated on the latest. So whether I'm talking about advanced care planning or whether I'm talking about executorship, I'm always needing to be up on the current legislation and what's going on and what people need to know that's new. And can you do workshops standalone? Absolutely. Can you come and just learn and not be ready to do anything? Absolutely. But also, if you want to, practically, if you're there because you need to do something and you need that help and you need to need information to make decisions, you can do that as well. So some of my workshops come in series. So I'm starting executor school in the spring in 2024, which is going to be four workshops that are all related to the different aspects of executorship because I think that's one role that people take on and they have no clue what that involves. And it's a lot. And where else do you go for education if you're an executor? Most people will go sit in a lawyer's office and spend money, right? [00:58:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Or they go to YouTube. [00:59:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Or they ask their friends and family and they do something silly. I get that all the time in my classes. Oh, my neighbor's brother did this. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm like, please don't do that. That's illegal. [00:59:16] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, what a mess. It's so good that you do this. Okay, so here's some of the crucial stuff as individuals are listening to this and they're like, oh, my gosh, I need this. How do they join some of your workshops? That's part one of the question, but also part two, as organizations hear this and they're like, ooh, we should provide this for our team. What do they do? How do they get a hold of you? How do they get involved in this, what I believe, ultra crucial process. [00:59:48] Speaker B: The easiest way to get into contact with me is through my website, which is Karen Consulting, C-H-A-R-O-N consulting, ca, because, hey, I'm in Canada. There's a contact form on there. You can look at my list of offerings, which change semester over semester. Some courses I take out, some I put back in. Everything is customizable, so that's one way to see what I offer and how to get in touch with me. My social media platforms are a bit in flux right now, so I'm working on figuring out what social media platform I'm going to be for the relaunch in 2024. But you can always reach me through my website, and I'm on LinkedIn. [01:00:32] Speaker A: Okay, great. And of course, we'll have all the links with all your stuff in the episode, so everyone just check that out. Okay, so as we're heading towards the end of the interview, I am going to give you what we call the crucial three. And the crucial three are three increasingly difficult questions that are intended to stretch you a little bit. But before we get to that, is there anything that you want to talk about that we haven't talked about? Is there anything you want to hype up that we haven't hyped up, or are there any questions you want to have for me? [01:01:04] Speaker B: Well, hopefully shortly, I will be having not one, but two books published in the spring. If all goes well, they're about 85% complete. So one is on departure planning, which is a series of checklists related to planning your body disposition, your disposal of your mortal remains, and then planning your memorial, your celebration of life, your funeral. It's meant to help you understand the decisions that need to be made so that you can have those important conversations. And it's called how to dispose of a body. Oh, yeah, a canadian's guide. Right. So, second book is going to be a little bit more involved, but it relates my change management methodology to end of life and family emergency planning. That one's a little bit bigger, and I'm still slogging through that. Books aren't easy, so that'll be out when it's out. [01:02:01] Speaker A: Do you have a working title for that one? [01:02:03] Speaker B: I've been fiddling around with a couple, but ABC. All because change equals d. Death. No, I'm not sure. [01:02:12] Speaker A: Can I suggest one? [01:02:14] Speaker B: No, I don't have a title yet. [01:02:16] Speaker A: Can I suggest a title for you? [01:02:18] Speaker B: Yes. [01:02:19] Speaker A: Death wishes. Death wishes instead of best wishes. [01:02:25] Speaker B: Death wishes. There you go. Yeah, for sure. [01:02:28] Speaker A: Death wishes. The abcs to your final d. Yeah, there you go. I mean, this writes itself. Okay. Anything else you want to hype up? Anything else we want to talk about? Any questions for me, just know that. [01:02:42] Speaker B: End of life planning, like I said, doesn't have to be done all at once. You don't have to worry about it. Just pick away at it a little bit at a time. Know you have the rest of your life to get it finished. Don't ignore it unless you're willing to take the risk of what happens if you do. Just get informed. Right. Start easy. Just learn what your options are. You don't have to make any decisions tomorrow. Just learn what your options are. For example, we talk about burial and cremation, but water cremation is coming. There are places in the states that are doing composting. There's all sorts of different options that may be available by the time you are ready to shuffle off this mortal coil. So being informed and at least knowing what options are is going to help when the time comes to make those decisions. [01:03:31] Speaker A: So let's start with the first of the crucial three. We'll start late. Pills and advice. People don't like taking either one of them, but different types of advice people are more comfortable with versus other kinds of advice. So if you were to think of all of the type of advice that you would be giving people around death education, getting ready for this, preparing for this. What's the one piece of advice that people don't take most often? What's the most ignored piece of advice? [01:04:04] Speaker B: The honest answer. Getting a will. [01:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Really? And why is that? [01:04:15] Speaker B: I don't know. They come to my classes, they're all excited. They're all like, yeah, I got to do this. I got to do this. But when the rubber hits the road and they really sit down, they're like, I'll do it later. [01:04:27] Speaker A: Wow, what a wild one. That's like the first thing that I've got planned for the spring of next year. [01:04:36] Speaker B: I have people that have gone to, like, two years of death literacy classes and have not yet completed their end of life plan. And I don't know if that's a reflection on me or what's going on in their lives, but good intentions, right? I would rather someone be informed and not do anything, however, than not be informed and not do anything. [01:04:59] Speaker A: With that. I was looking at Monica's brief. This isn't the second question, but just as an interesting sidebar, Monica mentioned to me what is the most commonly used receptacle for cremation? And do you want to share this? Because I think it's hilarious. [01:05:15] Speaker B: When you are cremated, what happens is the crematorium will put your remains, which are bone fragments, into an industrial, clear, quite thick plastic bag with one of those very hard metal crimping ties into a plain white cardboard box that is your temporary receptacle. And what generally happens then is you get transferred over to the funeral home, and they will put you in whatever urn or other container that you choose, if you choose something else. [01:05:54] Speaker A: I heard something about a coffee tin. [01:05:57] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. You wanted me to talk about the coffee tins. Yes. Funny enough, because I work with funeral homes, sometimes I get to go into the room where they transfer cremated remains from the temporary receptacle to the permanent or semi permanent receptacle. And coffee cans are still quite popular. I don't know if it was because of the Big Lebowski or if it's because it's not easy finding a container that's that large. Sometimes. [01:06:33] Speaker A: Put me in a Tim Hortons container. That's what I want. Take me out with Timmy. [01:06:38] Speaker B: Oh, with the clear want. You want the one with the clear lid so that people can say hi to you and you get some sun on your. [01:06:46] Speaker A: I want to keep some eye contact going. [01:06:48] Speaker B: That's right. Coffee containers are popular. What else have I seen? Sports memorabilia like giant piggy banks, cowboy boot piggy banks, and things like that. [01:07:03] Speaker A: So in your work, you are very comfortable talking about the practicalities of death. [01:07:11] Speaker B: Yes. [01:07:12] Speaker A: What about the practicalities of life? So you're sitting with people, talking to them about the end of their lives, while they also might be living the most impractical scenarios in their life. So does that factor into your work, and if so, how? [01:07:27] Speaker B: The most important thing that we acknowledge when we're acknowledging our mortality is that we have a finite life. And when we acknowledge mortality, we acknowledge that we do have a limited time left and that we can make better decisions about how we use it. And I think it's a natural byproduct of planning for end of life is to go, okay, I am going to die someday, so what am I going to do with the time I have left? So the practicalities of life are around. Live your life. Do not do shoulds anymore. Right. If you hear yourself saying, I should be doing this. Don't do it. It's obvious you don't want to. Don't shame yourself into doing something, but also remove those toxic people and toxic things in your life that you think aren't helping you live anymore. Good conversations. Keep those conversations going. [01:08:23] Speaker A: Well, I went through a real difficult period of my life around 2016, 2017, and I'll say one of the best things that came from that was my tolerance of spending time with people that were difficult became 0%. But extracting myself from those relationships was harder than I anticipated because it's like you kind of part of friend groups and this and that, and you don't want to invite someone to your party, but you feel like you can't. And at one point, I was just like, oh, this sucks. I'm just not doing this anymore. And I was like, damn the consequences. I don't care. I don't care if I hurt feelings. I just don't want to spend time with people who make me feel bad or are hard to spend time with. And it's been, like, one of the most freeing things, because also, it's like, as I've become much more aware of the end of my life, I've become much more aware of how I want to live the rest of my life. And it is not managing difficult people. I don't want to do that. And so I don't. [01:09:26] Speaker B: Exactly. So the benefit of acknowledging that we are finite is being able to make good quality decisions about how we do spend the time that we have here on the planet. And I think that in itself is the biggest lesson and the biggest piece of advice I can give people is, if you want a reason to do your will and to do your end of life planning, that's it right there. It will give you a better quality of life. [01:09:54] Speaker A: All right, so the last question for you is, with all your wisdom, all your knowledge, all of the stuff that you know about death, is there any part that you yourself are not properly prepared for to the level that you would like? [01:10:09] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, there's always paperwork to be updated. I'm not going to lie. There's always paperwork to be updated. And sometimes I leave my house in the morning and go, hey, if I get hit by a bus today, somebody's going to have to clean up the dishwasher. Those are the things that bother me, which is very strange sometimes, but it's thinking about the footprint that I'm going to be leaving behind. How am I positively impacting the world? And that's kind of how I live my life now, is how am I positively impacting? How am I being kind? These are the things that I think about when I think about my mortality is. Yeah. What's my legacy going to be? [01:10:55] Speaker A: Well, after that free advice that you gave us today, I think Mike and I could commit to coming and cleaning out your dishwasher if anything unexpected happens. So we got you. [01:11:04] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:11:06] Speaker A: Absolutely. All right with that. This was wonderful speaking to you today. Any last words before we sign off? [01:11:16] Speaker B: No. Keep being mortal and enjoy your life. And don't worry about death. It'll take care of itself. [01:11:25] Speaker A: Heck, yeah. Can I tell you something funny before I end? The last record that I was a part of, I have always wanted to do, and this is like a within culture reference, I've always wanted to do, like, a unity, uniform, choice, style poem at the end of a record. And I did one all about death. It's real deep, so we'll leave it at that. [01:11:48] Speaker B: That's awesome. [01:11:50] Speaker A: All right, everyone, this was a great episode. Gina, I had so much fun talking to you and also learned a ton, so I really appreciate it. Everybody, please check out all of Gina's links. Make sure to reach out if you have anything you want to talk about. And as always, we appreciate your support. I'll see you next time. On one step beyond dancing on the brink of death like there's no end, yet each moment could be the last. Within a breath, a life has passed. The reality of the end of my life is at the edge of what I can perceive. Death is staring back at me. So I want to accept that all I love and hold dear someday will disappear, that time will turn riches to dust, and that wisdom and love are the only wealth to trust. I want to accept the finality of death, to be reminded to live and measure each day not by what I get, but what I give. I want to accept that there's an end and that it's in sight. So I will try to find in every breath life in death.