Transcript for "The Legacy You're Already Building": Hello, everyone. Welcome. Just as we give people a couple minutes to trickle in, I see that we've got some people sharing where they're coming from already in the chat. Please do. I think we've got, coverage across the, across the country. So please, introduce yourself, say where you're coming from. So actually, we've got people, not just across the country, but also I see Canada as well. Hello, everyone. I now see that we have people from across the country who have all tuned in, so I think that it's a good time to start. Welcome, everyone, and thank you so much for joining the legacy you're already building. We're here today really in recognition of two moments. National Grief Awareness Day, which takes place on August 30 and Make A Will Month. And I am so honored to be joined by David Kessler, world renowned grief expert and Empathy's chief empathy officer, and Cameron Huddleston, personal finance journalist and author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk. Now most of us treat grief and estate planning as two unrelated things. One is emotional, and one is administrative. But today's conversation is really about why they're intertwined. And so before we dig in, I just wanted to start, David and Cameron, with a simple question, which is that when each of you hears the word legacy, what is the first image that comes to mind for you personally? And, David, let's let's start with you. It's interesting. I think the normal response is legacy is something after someone dies. But the reality is we are always building a legacy. Every day, every moment, when we leave the room, what legacy do we live by leave behind? When our loved ones are ill, maybe in the last chapters of their life, how are they building a legacy? And that legacy can be around making meaning. How do we make meaning out of what's going on? And it's interesting, you know, part of my work that we often don't get to talk about enough is the anticipatory grief. And that's the living grief that happens before the death. So a lot of people don't realize that grief is mixed in with all of this. And as we often say, logistics makes the grieving harder and grieving makes the logistics harder. And especially when it's coming ahead of the death. Yeah. I can I completely agree? I'm really excited to dig in with this, with you today. Cameron, what about you? Well, of course, as a personal finance journalist, I could say that legacy is often associated with inheritance, with the money that you leave behind. But to me, what legacy really is are your values, your life lessons, and the stories that you share with the people you love, the people you know, and the stories that are left behind when you are Yeah. I completely agree. Because at the end of the day, gone. legacies live on. And so, you know, we're here today to help help you own yours, but also honor theirs. Because, as you both touched on, legacies never really about paperwork. It's about what we leave inside the people that we love, and it's also where grief then begins. So, David, if I start with you, because you've sat in this moment more than almost anyone, really spending decades with people in the rawest moments of loss. I'm curious what have you noticed about the difference between family who have talked about these things beforehand and families who haven't? Well, it becomes so evident in those moments that the diagnosis happens. There are families that sit with the doctor and say, doctor, they cannot die. You cannot let that happen. And so because of that moment, nothing else gets out to be looked at, talked about, done versus the families who say, we hear that, we hope it's not true. How do we make the most of the last and give them as much time and give them as much quality? Those families have a less traumatic grief. They have conversations that make it easier. And it's interesting that things that keep people up at night are all the things that are undone that we feel we can't do. And so doing these things really brings peace of mind, and I would even argue that peace of mind helps with the healing process that we're Yeah. Because you I've heard you talk a lot about grief as an expression of love. And so when you think about that healing process, how does that same idea apply to planning? Be that wills, estate documents, through. or even end of life wishes. Well, it really comes down to I wanna make sure I make the decisions to help you when I'm gone, and that's part of the legacy. And if there's not information, if there's not conversations, there's much more likely to be conflict issues. And one of the greatest gifts we can give is to do things like our advanced directives, our wills ahead of time to help give clarity to these moments. And, Cameron, I know, you shared that you cared for your, mother with Alzheimer's for over a decade. And as you look back, what do you what do you wish had been in place, or what do you wish you'd talked about before before things became emergent? Fortunately, when my mom started showing signs of memory loss, we were able to quickly get her estate plan updated. That's her will, her living will, which David mentioned. Advance directive is another term for it. It spells out what sort of end of life care you do or do not want. We had our powers of attorney drafted so that I could make financial and medical decisions for her once she was no longer able to. What I regret is we never had conversations about long term care planning, what sort of care she would want if she needed it. And the reason I regret that is because I had to make those decisions for her. I would have liked to have known, okay, at what point would she be ready to sell her house and move into memory care and to assisted living? At what point would she want me to get involved with her care? At what point would she like me to start managing her finances for? I had to make all those decisions. It's not an easy decision to make. It's not an easy series of decisions to make because you want to respect your parents' wishes, but if you don't know what they are, you're just guessing. And then that's when the guilt comes in. Did I make the right decision? And so, of course, if I could go back all over again, I would have had those conversations with my mom well before she ever needed any sort of long term care. Yeah. And you you know, you said something very interesting, and it makes me think that, you know, so much of estate planning gets talked about as paperwork. But what you're talking about are sort of wishes, desires, and ultimately ultimately sort of care and legacy. And I'll start with you. But where do you think that framing comes from that it's sort of paperwork? And, like, why is it the wrong way to think about that? Well, I mean, when you get that estate planning packet, it's a big packet of papers. I have I have an estate plan. In fact, my husband and I have gone through the process three times already updating our plans as things change. I mean, it is a huge pack stack. of paperwork, but what it truly is, it's putting your wishes in writing. And if your wishes aren't in writing, your loved ones don't know what you want. And really, more importantly, if you don't have a will or if you don't have a trust that puts your final wishes in writing, then guess what? The state has one for you. The state laws will determine who gets your money, who gets your assets, even if you don't have a lot. And that's a key reason why a lot of people don't have a will. I don't have a lot. My family can figure it out. Well, guess what? They don't get to figure it out. State law is going to determine who gets your things when you die. And so if you want people to know your wishes and you want your wishes to be followed, you have to put it in writing and it's not just about what happens when you die, I think even more importantly is to put your wishes for what happens when you are no longer able to make decisions on your own. This is power of attorney documents, a power of attorney for finances, naming someone to make financial decisions for you if you can't, power of attorney for health care, naming someone to make medical decisions for you if you can't. These documents have to be in place and signed, but while you are still mentally competent. Otherwise, if they're not in place and like my mom, you're diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, you can no longer make decisions on your own. If I had not been named my mom's power of attorney, then I would have had to go to court to be named her conservator and her guardian to make decisions for her. No one wants to go through that process. It's emotionally trying. You're putting your parent or your loved one on trial to prove they're no longer competent, and it's expensive. I interviewed someone from my book who went through this process. It cost him more than $10,000 and nine months going through the court process to become his dad's conservator. And so, yes, at the end of the day, it's a bunch of paperwork, but it's your wishes. And it's them in writing so your loved ones know what they are, and they can honor them. David, what what do you think? You know, the conversations are really tough, and we forget that the conversations can be helpful. Let me just unpack something for a moment. One of the things I hear, I don't wanna have the conversation because I I don't wanna have to promise my mom or my dad they're never going to be in a facility or a nursing home or whatever it may be. And we have this historical stigma that really comes from the 1800s and the 1900s, the early 1900s that your whole family, you had six, seven people living in the same home. You had elderly there. You had young kids. Many people weren't working. Your family was in the houses next door on the same block. And when a loved one was ill, it was the family's job to care for them at home. What happened back then is if you were a family that didn't take care of your loved one, it was a horrible stigma because you have the people, you have the resources. Why weren't you doing it? Now the world has changed so much. We live in a world where everyone's working. Two people are working in the home. The grandparents aren't there, the kids aren't. And we're trying to figure out how to maneuver that. And we have this expectation that we should never put our loved ones in a facility. And I'll tell you, I work with people all the time who go through this process and say to me, I get to show up now and just be the son or the daughter and the professionals are caring for them. I wish I could have had the talk and just told my mom, mom, what if the day comes that I can't take care of you and the kids, would it be okay if I made sure I picked out a nice place and you were okay? All those conversations can relieve guilt that trickles down and then the paperwork becomes easier if the conversations have been had. Yeah. I think that's a it's a segue to sort of where I'd love to take us next, which is, you know, what I've just heard from both of you is, you know, planning is love. Planning is actually hearing wishes. And the families that talk about it do do fare better, and we we can see that. But there's something intrinsic that we do still put this off, and sometimes we put this off for years. And so this is a bit that I'd love to turn to to next, not not to shame anyone at all, really just to understand it. And, you know, Cameron, what do you think the real reasons that people put this off? Is it money? Is it sort of fear of mortality, family dynamics, or is or is it something else? You know, several estate planning attorneys that I've interviewed over the years for my book, for articles have told me that they often hear from clients that they're afraid that as soon as they write a will, that they're gonna die, that that the process of writing a will is going to hasten their death. You know, as I mentioned earlier, I've gone through the process three times. I am living proof that writing a will does not kill you. I've done it. I'm still here. You know, but many surveys that I've seen actually show that one of the key reasons that people put it off is because they're busy. We get busy dealing with the things that we have to do on a day to day basis, and we're not thinking about the future. So that's any reason, you know, and I've I've got to deal with these bills. I've got to go to work. I've got to take care of the kids. I've got to get them to school. I've got to take care of mom. I've got to help dad get to the doctor's office. I don't have time to think about what my plans are for the future. I don't have time to think about who's gonna get my money when I'm gone. I don't have time to think about who's gonna manage my finances if I can't. In fact, I didn't even realize I was a thing. I didn't realize I had someone to manage my finances or make health care decisions for me. Can't someone just do that for me without a legal document in their hands? You know, and so we get busy. We don't think about the future. You know, another thing is that we we think that a lot of us think that, well, we don't have enough. We don't have enough to to to create a will or to have a trust. We have a house, maybe a car, our family can sort it out. But this gets back to if you don't have that plan in writing, then there can be family fights, and people will fight over the smallest things. When money comes into the picture, these families that once got along well can suddenly erupt in arguments. It can tear families apart. And so, sure, you might be busy today, but really this is such an act of love to carve out a little time to to create a plan and to put it in writing, and more importantly, to have these conversations with your loved ones to let them know that you have a plan or to talk with your parents and your loved ones to find out if they have a plan. And how do oh, sorry, David. You go. I was about to say that's so true. You know, I think about we have that evil eye. Don't bring on the evil eye by talking about it. I know some funeral directors have even told me they've seen when they have someone on a payment plan paying for their funeral, sometimes the last payment doesn't get made because they're afraid if they make the last payment, they will die. And so it's interesting how we have all these superstitions And if you can get past them realizing, and I do exactly what Cameron says, I'll say, wait, you you don't talk about it? Wait, your grandparents didn't talk about it? Are they still alive? No. They died. Oh, okay. So apparently, we still die even if we don't plan. And then if you can get past all of that, the complexity, anyone who's gone online and looked for a will or advanced directive, it is overwhelming. And so I love that we're all finding ways to make this more accessible and simpler because the complexity is just overwhelming for the average person. And if you know, I think probably many of us in the in the audience today are listening to you both and going, yeah. That's me. I have I have this sort of superstition, or I have been putting this off because I am busy, and I've got parents, and I've got kids, and I've got life, and I've got a job. So I'd love for you both to share. If someone's listening today that's that has been avoiding this and, you know, has hears themself in what you're saying, What is one thing that they could do this week? Not the full plan, but just one small step to get started. Maybe, Cameron, I we say go ahead, Cameron. Sure. Sure. So as a journalist, I'm gonna say give yourself a deadline. Okay? Maybe that's a deadline for finding an estate planning attorney and calling that attorney and making an appointment. Maybe it's a deadline for approaching this topic with your spouse or your significant other. Maybe this is a deadline for having a conversation with your parents or your children. Give yourself a deadline. Write it in the calendar so that you will start taking action. My first step would be get through the first hurdle. And to me, the first hurdle would be to the person that you wanna be there for them and to that family member that avoids every conversation to say, we are going to begin having discussions and they are about love and they are about comfort and they are gonna bring us all peace. And we're gonna make sure that we take care of the people we love. And I know everyone here in our family is gonna feel like, why stop? No. But we gotta get to the other side and just know these conversations are coming. Try to make peace and understand they're about love and making sure we're all comfortable. I I love that. I'm definitely gonna be, scheduling some time for myself, this coming this coming week because it's definitely time for me to be making sure that I, I update. And, Cameron, I think something something you said sort of triggered this for me, which is, you know, there's never there really is never a right time. And so and it's easy to continue to sort of put it off because of the fact that, you know, is there a right time to have that conversation? And so, you know, you've said, you know, that we're doing this you both said you're doing this out of love. Put put a deadline. But how do you how do you know it's time to have that conversation? Be that with an aging parent or a partner. It's all personal, really. It depends on your situation. If you're wanting to have this conversation with a parent or a loved one, it depends on their situation. My husband and I had this conversation with our two adult daughters. We have three children. Our youngest was still a little too young to have the conversation, but we just decided, you know what? We've updated our estate plans for the third time now. We have named our two adult daughters, young adult daughters, nonetheless, but we've named them as our backup executors for our state, our backup powers of attorney if my husband and I aren't around to step into that role for each other. So we need to give them information about what these roles entail and what information they need. And so you can use your own estate planning to start these conversations. It's having that conversation with your children or with your parents. You know, if my parents have still been alive, I could have used that as a way to start the conversation with them. Mom and dad, you know, my husband and I just updated our will for the third time. Wanted to let you know that we have these documents. We wanna let you know where they are. Of course, if you are seeing signs that your parents need help, then those conversations need to happen right away. You can't hold up anymore, you know, and it's interesting. So many people I talked to before my book and after my book was written, people would tell me, well, I haven't had these conversations with my parents yet because we're not there yet. They're doing okay. They're healthy. I don't need to bring up something sad like this with them now. We don't need to have this conversation. And to that, I would say this is the perfect time to have the conversation when your parents, when your loved ones are still healthy because you can talk about hypothetical situations. What would happen if if something happened and you were in the hospital and I needed to pay your bills for you, what would that look like? What information would I need mom and dad? Or saying to your spouse, something happened to you. How can I access your bank account? I don't have your password. How can I make sure the bills keep getting paid? You know? So when you're having these conversations before there's an emergency, before there's an actual need, you're you're helping to remove some of those emotions out of the equation because you're not dealing with an emergency. Like I said, you can talk about it in hypothetical terms. And so having these conversations sooner rather than later, rather than when there is an emergency, rather than when you have to have them, that's the way to do it. Yeah. For one? And no, David. I was gonna I was gonna ask you for because I know that, you know, sort of on the other side of that. So I'm curious to hear your perspective of what happens, you know, emotionally in families in the weeks after a loss, particularly when there hasn't been a will or a plan or a conversation and sort of how you've sat with people and seen that play out. The one thing that would motivate everyone is the thing I can't do is I would take people into my online grief groups and see the pain and the anguish and the conflict and the issues and the dysfunction that comes up because siblings saw it all differently. So many things go wrong at the end of life, and it just the love really can get lost. And one of the things that I just wanna go to that Cameron said that's so important is when we talk about these conversations, one of the things is that the first thing you'll hear as you approach this conversation is I'm not dying. The best thing we can do for that is do our wills, our advanced directives. You can't not have your will and your advanced directive done and say to someone older, you have to do yours and they go, but I'm not dying. And then they turn to you go, you haven't done yours either. Well, I lose the case that it's not just for dying people if I haven't done mine. And unfortunately from where I sit in the grief world, young people die too, middle age people die too. So I would say, make it a family affair. No, we're all gonna do our wills. We're all gonna do our advanced directives. We're gonna do these together when we're not sick. So that when we're in grief, we can really be in the pure grief and the pure love without the conflict. And I can go first. That can happen in this world. So I think that's important to really help it be a family thing, not a you're the oldest person. It's time for you now. I like that. So strength in numbers. Someone's just put, have a family retreat and do it all at the all at the same time. But I think with that comes some shared shared accountability as well. And, I think one of the things I'd love to talk to you about is, you know, we've sort of talked a lot about the avoidance, but then doing something about it is a whole whole other thing. And so, and maybe just for the audience as well, you've been sharing a lot as we go, but I'd love to hear from you, and you can just share in the chat, if you have a will or if you've talked to your family about end of life, and we'll be able to sort of pull from some of that as we talk. But, David and Cameron, we'd love to now let's talk about even more in even more practical terms, you know, how we, how we make that conversation practical. We've talked about sort of making a plan, bringing the family together, starting you know, leading by example. But, Cameron, how how should we how should you walk us through actually starting that conversation? Like, is there a script, an icebreaker? Is there a wrong way to open it? Like, what would how how would you go about it? I think if you're trying to have the conversation with your parents, there are lots of wrong ways to start that conversation. One of them would be giving your parents an ultimatum. Mom and dad, if you don't tell me about your estate plan, if you don't talk to me about your finances, then don't expect me to help meet you when you get older. Okay? I mean, of course, they're gonna get defensive. Of course, they're gonna dig in their heels and so these conversations need to come from a place of love and so if you're having the conversation with your parents, you want to let them know that you want to talk because you love them. Mom and dad, I love you. You always took such good care of me. If there ever comes a time when I need to help care for you, I need some information. It's just really, it can be as simple as that. Just being open and honest and letting them know why you wanna have the conversation because you love them and you wanna be able to honor their wishes. Now if you're having the conversation with your own children or other family members, you know, David kind of jokingly mentioned that these conversations often start with I'm not dying. When we had the conversation with our children, we hardly even got into the conversation before they hijacked it because they wanted to talk right away about what our final wishes were. And then my oldest daughter asked my husband, dad, do you wanna be a firework when you die? Because apparently you can have your ashes explode into the air like a firework. And she asked me, mom, do you wanna be a diamond ring? And so it actually lightened the mood a little bit because and they probably did it themselves. You know, they were probably feeling a little bit uncomfortable about the conversation. And so by slightly joking about it, I think it made it easier for them to approach what really was a little bit of a difficult conversation because they're young, my husband and I are still relatively young, they don't want to have to think about that point when we're not going to be there for them or if they have to care for us. And so you can keep these conversations like it's okay to joke a little bit. They don't have to be super serious. You know, I mean it is a difficult topic that you don't have to you know be heavy about it. It's okay to keep that light. In fact, I would encourage people to to keep it light and you can you can use stories to have a conversation. You can use stories you know, with your children talking about your experience with your parents and maybe because you had a difficult experience or a positive experience, you wanna start talking now so that the experience can be better for your children. Same goes for when you have the conversation with your parents. If you have friends, you can use their stories like they had a difficult experience with their parents that because they didn't have a will and you can share that and say, I want it to go better for us. You know, we we deserve better. We love each other. Let's make a plan. Lots of different ways to have a conversation, lots of different times to have the conversation. Again, they're just making sure that you have this conversation sooner rather than later. And for the avoidant parent or partner, you know, even if you've sort of followed your sort of what not to do and what to do, right, how do you how do you approach it if a parent or a partner does just shut shut the conversation down? Well, They're like, I. think go ahead. Sorry. We. I I mean, I'm I'm sure I'm sure, David, you have a lot to say on this topic. I would just say, you know, one of the things I learned from the financial therapist that I interviewed for my book is that you don't actually want to ask, well, why don't you want to have this conversation? Because then people can get defensive. What you want to do though is get them to think themselves about the reasons why. So you can ask questions like, well, you know, I hear that you don't want to have this conversation, does that mean that you don't think it's important to have a plan? Or do you don't think a will is worthwhile? So getting them to kind of think about those reasons why they're reluctant to talk can perhaps get them to maybe open up a little bit. But I'll let David jump in now because I I jumped in ahead of him. Very much aligned, Cameron. You know, one of the things is when we get that, no, not now. Why are you gonna ruin today? I'm not dying. Whatever it may be, we shut down. And the most important thing we can do instead of shutting down or getting defensive is to get curious. Wow. So it's not the right time. I'm so curious. Mom, what would make it the right time? When do you think the right oh, dad, you think this is gonna bring on your death? Can you where did that come from? Is that something you were raised with? I mean, just to get curious about their answers are coming from somewhere logical to them. And the more we know about all the beliefs and the stories they're bringing to it, the more equipped we are to continue the conversation. I think it's, I love that get curious as a as an important takeaway. And, you know, Cameron Huddleston, you talked about that this doesn't need to be a sort of incredibly heavy, conversation, and I liked sort of how you talked about, you know, some some of the humor that might have even been injected or the lightness. David Kessler, I know you've also got perspectives on, on this, and I'm I'd love to hear your perspective on, like, how how you recommend bringing up your own mortality or planning without that conversation needing to become too heavy or frightening. If there's any way to get support in, you know, one of the things that happens in families is most of us are on our best behavior when we're around, not just our little nucleus of our family. And one of the things we did, I was working in a hospital system for over a decade. We had make your wishes known day just for advanced directives. We had people come in, watch a ten minute presentation, sit down with the forms, have someone close by with any answers, have a notary. We get 456 advanced directives in a day because people need structure and support. If there's anyone you can invite over and you can make that as part of the first conversation, I'd really like to invite Susan over. She's the lawyer next door. We're not she's not gonna be our lawyer. She's just gonna be there for support or questions or, you know, Susan down the streets of social worker, Just someone or, you know, our aunt is so level headed. Let's just invite her over for the next conversation to give it some structure and support. Yeah. And, you know, it makes me think about, well, first of all, sort of, yeah, a almost a mediator as well, because I'm definitely not on my best behavior sort of within that family nucleus. Right. But I also, I like that idea of sort of the rituals that can come with that. And I'm curious, you know, you mentioned sort of the make your wishes known, known day, whether there are any other sort of rituals or sort of language from your grief work that can make these legacy conversations easier, along with Susan from down the road. I talk about picking and choosing. You have to pick who's gonna help you carry out your wishes and choose what you want and what you don't want. And I think one of the biggest things people need to know that they don't often understand, and it goes to really where Cameron Huddleston took us at the beginning. No choice is a choice. Making no choice is choosing the state to come in and run your affairs. No choice is the doctors put their belief system on what happens to you. The case managers do. We have an illusion. I'm just putting it off and not making a choice to let them know not making a choice is a choice. No. Yeah. I think that is, definitely something that we we should all take, and I love that you're giving us some language that we can take into our into our day to days as well. Audience, I wanna make sure that we have a chance to also, answer your questions as they come through. So please, please make sure, that they do. I think we've just had one, which is around how you pick your, how you how you pick your, executor, and where where to go about sort of finding, finding both the state attorneys, but also sort of who becomes that executor. And, Sophie, it's cute. It's not executor. It's executor. Executor. Oh my gosh. That's the that's the that's the. British. But, Isn't it? right, right, right, but I think people often might feel that way. So it's interesting that you took that take. Yes. Here, they're called the executor. And I'll tell you the answer to that is it's often not the person you think. Mhmm. We often think it is the person closest to us. We think it's the person who loves us the most. They may not be the best executor. They may not be the best decision maker. You know, we always think, well, of course, it's gonna be my spouse. Sometimes the brother, the sister might be the better person. So it's interesting to think a little bit outside the box on who that might be. I think too what we can for some people who might not even know what an executor or exec executris is, this is the person you name or people you name in your will who is going to handle the settling of your estate when you die, the distribution of your assets, your money, your property. They also handle settling any debts that you have. Now you can name this person in your will, but then again, at the end of the day, a judge is gonna decide well, the judge can decide if they don't think that person's fit for the job, they can name someone else to be the administer of your estate. It's a tough job. It it it requires some financial know how because you're dealing with financial matters. It takes someone who is patient because you might again have family members who are squabbling over who gets what and hey, when am I gonna get my share and there's a process and it takes time. You know, being the executor it's like a job, it truly is like a job and it requires a lot of time and a lot of commitment and so the person you name has to be willing to take on this job, you know, and as David Kessler mentioned, your spouse might not be the person for this job because they are going to be grieving and asking them to have to settle what's left behind, to deal with what's left behind. That's going to add more stress to what they're already dealing with. And so maybe it is naming a sibling, a cousin, a good friend, or perhaps an adult child, you know, and not only should you name an executor, but you need a backup. Someone who's there in case that person you name is your executor has already passed away or doesn't want the job. And that executor could be for a living trust also. If you have a home, it's a really good idea to look into a living trust to talk about that with, some representation, your accountant, your attorney. And I'll tell you, I, you know, I would not make my executor, my spouse, my child, just like you said, they are too much in grief and you wanna make it someone that the family trusts, the family understands, the family knows. So it's really that best decision maker is what we're looking for. And, David Kessler, just talk a little bit more about that because I think that when picking your executor, I think that there is also there is a there is emotion involved, particularly when you're having these difficult conversations about estate planning and about about your wishes. When you're thinking about picking sort of the most practical option, how how do how would you recommend approaching that with your nearest and You know, I often talk about there's different kinds of grievers. There's, intuitive grievers, which are most of us the emotional grievers. There's the instrumental grievers. The instrumental grievers are the ones who are the take care of things. And then we have the practical grievers who are, how do we move on? What do we need to do? It's interesting. We often think that feeling grieever is of course the best one, but it's really the other two. The people who are about, we gotta take care of things, your your person who is the type a person in your life, that maybe they drive you crazy about being type a, but this is the moment you'd be putting that type a to use. You know? Yes. That's me. That's why I manage my mom's finances and handled her estate after she died because it's like, let's get it done. I have to have a plan. There's a plan in place. And one of the things that someone mentioned in the chat that we haven't said here is all of this talk is let's get this ready before we need it. To introduce the concept, we're assuming there's gonna be a gradual decline. There's gonna be a slow cancer. We forget death's cough and come suddenly without any awareness that we may not have the grace of seeing it coming to even get these things in place. I think. it's I would so I wanna actually, I wanna build on that because I was I I wrote my book in large part because I did not have detailed conversations with my mom about her finances before her Alzheimer's diagnosis, but I also wrote it because I didn't have conversations with my dad before he died and he died at 61. It was a shock. What was more shocking is that even though he was an attorney and in a second marriage, he died without a will. There was there was no plan and that was that was incredibly difficult. It made a difficult situation so much harder because there was no plan and it leaves you thinking, Why didn't this person care enough to put a plan in writing? That's the legacy, in my opinion, that you leave behind if you don't have a plan. Your loved ones are going to think why didn't this person have a plan? Why didn't they care enough to put something in writing? Yeah. You don't wanna leave behind a legacy of chaos. No. No. Planning planning is love. Planning planning is care. I think that's something that's really coming through from both from both of you. Someone someone's put in here and, Cameron, I know you mentioned that you've updated your, your documents. I think you've said three three times. How often should people, be making updates to to their legacy plan? If you have actually, I'm gonna before I jump into that, someone had asked what are the basic components of an estate plan. So you need a will or a trust or in some cases, both. Got it. Got Both. I'm gonna put it. Got it. Right. Something that spells out who gets what when you die. A will also allows you to name a guardian for your children. So if you have a trust, you still need a will to name guardians for your children. Otherwise, again, a judge is gonna decide who cares for your children, and you don't wanna leave that decision up to someone you've never even met. You need powers of attorney, power of attorney for finances, someone who is named to make financial and legal decisions for you if you can't. You need that health care power of attorney, someone who can make medical decisions for you if you can't, and you need what is called an advanced directive or living will that spells out what sort of end of life care you do or do not want. Do you wanna be kept on life support? Again, your family members should not have to make this decision for you. This should be up to you and you need to put it in writing. How often should you update your estate planning documents? Anytime there is a major change in your life. For example, if you get divorced, you need new estate planning documents because you probably had your spouse named as the benefactor of your estate. If there's a death in the family, again, if your spouse or your partner passes away, if you have another child, we drafted our first will after our daughters were born, but then we had a son so we needed to update it for that. And so when there are major changes in your life or perhaps you've just changed your mind about who gets what or who the person is who's gonna make financial and medical decisions for you. And we've mentioned how important wording is. Wording matters in this. So for example, so many people get asked, you know, the doctor says it might be time to take your dad, your mom off life support. No. I would never do that to my mother. I teach physicians, therapists to use the wording artificial external life support. All of us here today are on life support. We have internal life support. In the hospital, sometimes things have gone wrong and they've had to put someone on artificial external life support. And when you have to make that decision, just like we've said, it's lovely if you can point to the advanced directive and said, mom said she never wanted artificial external life support versus feeling like I'm doing something to mom that's hastening her death. I think that's, I think that's incredibly important. And one of the things that I'm also hearing from both of you is this is not a one and done conversation. This is something that you need to continue to go back to. And as you do so, we'll also become sort of more literate and more confident in in these conversations so that sort of your needs and wishes can continue to sort of evolve and strengthen. I'm just wanting to sort of take a step back now and sort of widen widen it back out. We've covered a lot on sort of the why and the how. And as we come to the end of this conversation, I I wanna return with both of you to to the heart of it, to actually what it takes to hold both of these truths at once, grieving someone that you've lost while preparing for people that are still here, which is sort of the hardest thing on our table today. But also, as I've heard from both of you, is is the most loving. And so, I'd love to I'd love to just hear from from you. What does it look like to hold both both of them at once, grieving someone that you've lost whilst also knowing that it is an act of love to prepare for the people that are still here? David, Well, do you wanna ask me about anticipatory grief, I always say you have two things to do. Feel your feelings, grieve your feelings, and don't attend the funeral early. The person is still here. And the earlier you can get the logistics out of the way, the easier the more quality time you have with them. And that's what you want is that quality time. I think that's great. I don't know how I can add to it other than to say that, I think in some cases you can use that grief as a motivator. If you have lost a parent, if you have lost a loved one, it can motivate you to do your own planning so that, again, your loved ones can experience that grief with your loss without having to deal with the stress of trying to figure out what you would have wanted, what your final wishes were. And. I would also say use current events, whether it's Gladys down the street who died and the family's fighting horribly. Mom, dad, I don't ever want us to be like them down the street. Or the celebrity in the news that's in some big lawsuit over some estate that they're fighting with or, you know, use those moments to bring up the conversation. Yeah. Again, bringing it back to sort of your your current reality. And I think that, you know, Cameron, to your point, David, you opened by saying that grief can make logistics harder, and logistics makes the grief harder. And so really sort of getting back to that to that why as well. So big final question for both of you as we close. You know, we talked about legacy at the beginning. What is the legacy that you're each hoping to leave, and how has doing this work shaped that answer? And, Cameron, I'm gonna pick on you first. I I think it's pretty simple. I think the legacy that I want to leave behind is a legacy of love for my family and friends and kindness to strangers and to everyone and this is this is what I learned from my own mother. It's not through the work that I do as a journalist or as an author. It's what my mom taught me and what I saw her do every single day of her life is show love and kindness to everyone who was in her life. I think for me as a grief expert, it is to be the person who helps people through the worst moments of their life. And, you know, I went to school for this, but I also had two parents who died. I had a younger son who died. I mean, I understand the brutality of all that. And, you know, Sophie, you've heard the story that even for me as a grief expert, when my son died, there were things, the logistics I couldn't deal with that empathy was amazing to get me through. So to not be afraid to ask for help. So I wanna be someone who is a helper in all the areas for these moments and someone who teaches that it's okay to get help when we need it. Well, thank you both so much, David and Cameron. This was honest. It was raw. It was generous, and it was practical. And it was exactly the kind of conversation that we hope that we hope that our audience, and I'm seeing, a lot of love come through, will carry forward, with your friends, with your family, but also simply how you think about your own legacy, whether you have a plan in place or whether you will be making a plan, a small first step, that from what you've heard today. Because as we said at the start, legacies live on. So own yours and honor theirs. And so, for all of you here, if you'd like to learn more about how empathy shows up for moments like these, both in terms of legacy planning, but also, how we support people through loss, please visit empathy.com. But really a huge thank you, David and Cameron, for sharing your stories, sharing your why, and giving us all very practical steps, for how we can honor our legacies and those around us. Thank you, everyone. Thank you all. Thank you.