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Video Description

Hello Cozy Caregiver Cafe Family!

In Season 2, Episode 1 of the Cozy Caregiver Cafe Podcast, I am finally brave enough to begin a series called "Planning My Own Funeral."

As a Family Caregiving Attorney & Coach, I see how the heaviness of death weighs on life. And I'm convinced it doesn't have to be this way.

Nobody can evade death.

So why not embrace it? Why not let death be our best friend, a guide for how we want to live our life, and the legacy we want to leave upon our inevitable passing.

In this episode I share how we selected a guardian for our son, and I provide some helpful frameworks in choosing a legal guardian for your children when both parents pass from the perspective of an attorney providing legal education. I also share some legacy practices I've engaged in as a Mama to a 3 year-old, and how these practices will set up the guardians for success should they ever be called upon.

With love,

Allison

Thank You For Listening!

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Video Transcript

Hello, Cozy Caregiver Cafe family. It's Allison. I hope that you're well. I am so, so curious and also intrigued to start this very new series. Kind of chapter here at the Cozy Caregiver Cafe. Of course, we're going to continue to have interviews with experts and current caregivers and former caregivers.

But we are also adding in. Oh, my goodness. I'm so excited. We're adding in healers who are on the podcast going to be introducing you to a modality. And then from there, if you're interested in the healing modality that they're talking about. You will be invited to watch and engage in the actual healing on the Cozy Caregiver Cafe television show, which is over on YouTube.

So if you are curious about healing practices and energy practices, how it could help you as a caregiver, I really wanted to bring that to you. I want to introduce you to. All of these tools to all of these different techniques that thousands and thousands of people have found. Hoping have found safety and have found saving in for thousands and thousands of years.

The reason why I'm incorporating this kind of content into the cozy caregiver cafe podcast is because energy healing really did save me. During caregiving after my dad died and I went through that entire process When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and so that was seven years later roughly I knew I had to do something differently.

I knew that I couldn't just Emotionally and energetically be the way I was when my dad was sick and when he died so the moment that that I found out that my mom was sick. I essentially reached out to three different professionals and these three professionals served as my three legged stool. I reached out to a social worker at the hospital to help me with practical information on how I could care for my mom.

I reached out to a pastoral psychotherapist who could be on call should I need therapy. And I reached out to an energy healer. And I have to tell you, it was the energy healer. That just made everything feel so much more manageable, especially when I didn't know how I was going to keep going. I went to that energy healer nearly every week when I was caregiving, and it was really the only thing that brought me relief during this time.

unrelenting season of my life. So as we embark on season two of the Cozy Caregiver Cafe podcast, I couldn't, I couldn't in good conscience, talk about caregiving and try to serve caregivers in all the ways that I can without also bringing this in. Now, If you're a little skeptical, don't worry, I understand.

Is it going to be a little out there in the healing episodes, which will be happening monthly? Yes, it may be a little out there. It'll stretch you. Is it going to be woo? Yes. If you're not at all interested, of course, I encourage you not to listen to these episodes, but maybe you just put a pin in them and you just know that should you ever find yourself, in a season of caregiving where it feels like there is literally nothing you can do right now that will make this life better, where it feels like you are crawling out of your skin.

If it feels like you have so much inside of you and you don't know how to get it out, I hope that you do return to these healing practices. They are lifesavers. In addition, and what this podcast episode will be about, I also have had this idea, this really sticky idea for years, and I'm actually brave enough to do it.

So much about podcasting is about finding your voice, finding my voice. And after season one, I realized that to continue to be even more authentic, continue to serve God the way that I want to in this podcast and to continue to serve all of you, I have to go there. So. What I'm going to do in this episode is I am going to do a portion of a segment that I want to call Planning My Funeral.

Now before you get worried, I'm not at all sick. As far as I know, I am very, very healthy. I'm 39 years old. I'm married. We have a three year old son. We live in New York City. But, as a caregiving mom. advocate as a family caregiving attorney and coach as a family caregiving attorney that deals with estate planning and estate administration which are things like your will and your trust and your health care proxy.

I just have realized that I don't want to leave any stone unturned when it comes to helping families prepare for the thing that none of us can avoid Which is death. And in doing this work in caregiving, actually really thinking about death and feeling death and seeing how it impacts families, there's actually been a comfort that comes with that.

I don't feel afraid of death because I know that it's a certainty. And so when I find that there's something that I'm not really quite sure what to do with, but I start to change the nature of it in my mind, what I do is I just decide to make that very thing my best friend. So just like time a few years ago, I was feeling really just pulled in so many directions and I decided time was going to be my best friend, which it now is.

Hand in hand with time comes death. And I am making death, particularly my death, my best friend. And so to nurture this best friend, what I want to do is I want to leave. A trail of stars and rainbows and hearts. If you know me, you know, this is who I am. Um, I also want to leave a really thoughtful plan for the people who love me.

Now, I hope that this plan that I'm putting out there into the world through this podcast is something that continues to be revised and is not ever something that's visited. I mean, I'm 39. So let's say for another 70 years. But. I'm willing to go there, and I'm hoping that in listening to this, you might be willing to go there, too.

And so, I'm just going to share a little bit. Every time we do a segment like this, it's going to be on a different topic, and if you want, please feel free to grab a pen or a pencil and a notepad, because I'm hoping that you might find something helpful or interesting. And it might encourage a little bit of action when it comes to your plan for your life, your estate plan, your caregiving plan, your legacy plan, all of that goodness.

Okay, so today on planning my own funeral. I want to talk about my son Hudson. So many families that I see in my estate planning practice, this is the number one issue that they come to me for, and it's finding a guardian for their child in the very unlikely scenario that both parents die. Now, I just want to note a few things, and one of those things is that If you have somebody and you and your spouse agree or your partner agree with who those guardians should be, that's great.

That's wonderful. If you don't know who this person or these people should be, the ones to serve as guardians to your children, that's also okay. Getting an estate plan drafted, going through the process, which is step by step. is a forcing function to make these decisions. Now, you can't have a complete, for instance, will or a state plan without making these decisions.

But if this is the thing that's keeping you from having a will drawn up, I really lovingly challenge you to be brave enough to take the first step and to reach out to an attorney who can help you because it might just be this very process. That allows you to feel, to recognize who the guardian should be.

And. One of the things that often comes up is the family members, particularly the parents of a minor child, they don't agree. Somebody wants their sister while another person wants their mother and know that, and this is what I always tell the clients who come to me, that It's actually natural to have different inclinations for who you want to care for the most important person in your life.

So, I never want couples to feel shame, to feel guilt, if they are disagreeing about this. And I never want them to feel like they shouldn't seek out. An attorney to help them with estate plans because they can't agree again, I actually think that going through the process and feeling in a sense forced to come to terms with what this estate plan means might be the very thing that allows you to get on the same page.

And I offer all that guidance and I offer that background, which of course is legal education, not legal advice, because I don't want not knowing who the guardian should be for your child to keep you from moving forward. And one of the reasons that I don't want that is from. A practical perspective. We know that it's such a mess when people die without a will.

And I don't want that for your family. And from a personal perspective, I know that this is actually one of the elements that keeps people up at night, that keeps people in guilt and shame. They don't know how to move forward, but they also can't stop thinking about it. And so this is just my encouragement for you.

Take a deep breath to move forward and to trust that that next step will appear. When it comes to my own, my own plan, the way that I really went through this process was I sat down in a quiet place, and this is when I was thinking about who the guardian of our three year old son Hudson should be. I sat down in a quiet place, I closed my eyes, and I just asked myself, If you were really in trouble, like really in trouble, like desperately in trouble, who would you turn to?

And even in saying that, I feel emotional, but I just sat there in a meditation. And really two families. They floated up to the surface and I knew that those were the two families that I most wanted to serve as the guardian and the successor guardian or the guardian that will step in if the other family can't.

to Hudson. So what I did then was I brought this to my husband and I shared with them, I shared with him family one and family two and we talked about it and we were in agreement and as a result I knew that I could move forward in drafting my own documents because we were in agreement on this. So that's how I came to choose the two families.

And so one of the questions that often comes up is, well, if I'm fortunate enough to have two families that I feel like could serve, how do you choose who should be the first family listed? And this really is one. If there are two families and so much is equal about them, I do, I do, Advise to think about location and if the locations are different, let that be a guiding force for us.

One family is located in New York City and one family is not. And so it's just natural to have the family located in New York City, since that's where we live, serve as the primary guardian in the very unlikely scenario that both my husband and I pass and Hudson is still a minor. But. I made sure that in explaining this to both families, which I'll talk about in a little bit, that I communicated that the family we chose as the alternate or the successor guardian was not because they were lesser.

It was simply a geography thing. The second part of planning my funeral that I want to share is Actually communicating this to the families you've selected before you draft before you have anything on paper, you really should ask, you should ask, The families or the family or the individual you've chosen, if they're willing to serve, and it can be a really awkward thing.

So I just want to share the process that I went through because I thought that it might be helpful. I always like to put things out in writing. Especially if it's something that I want someone to give some thought to, because when it's text or phone or in person, people can feel compelled to respond right away.

And when it came to something like this, that's actually so emotional, I wanted to give. people the opportunity to think on it. And for me, I have always found email is actually one of the best ways to do that. And so I drafted these two emails and I sent them out and then I texted my friends because the email is a heavy email.

And I said, Hey, just so you know, there's something that's in your inbox. It's a serious matter. I just wanted you to know, so you're not surprised by it. Everything's okay. And whenever you're ready to talk. I would love to talk to you about this and I can tell you that the, the families, um, that we have chosen as, um, the guardians for Hudson, they reached out within seconds, seconds of us texting, they check their email, and they reached out and said, Absolutely.

No question. Tell us what we need to do. And even in just sharing this now, it makes me cry because I was so grateful and relieved to have these people in my life. And so, when you go through the process of reaching out, it's an emotional thing. You're putting your thoughts and feelings down in writing.

It's an emotional thing. When somebody says yes, I just want you to truly receive that, sit with that, feel what it means for you to go out on a limb and say, Will you care for my son, the most important being in my life, should I ever not be able to? And to have someone say without hesitation, absolutely.

Now, just as some legal education and a little bit of background, one of the things from a practical perspective when you're drafting that you'll want to consider is whether it makes sense to name both adults, if they're a married couple or they're a couple in a relationship, as the guardians, or only one of the individuals in that couple.

And you definitely want to talk to your lawyer about this, but I can tell you just as a general framework that naming two people can be difficult. It can make things slightly more challenging in the unforeseen event that the couple ends up getting divorced or someone in that couple passes. It just makes things a little more complicated.

So you might want to think through this and then talk to your attorney about this. A lot of times. I have found people want to name a couple because although they understand practically that it's Easier legally to name one person versus two people together. They don't know how to have that conversation.

Then they don't know how to go back to their friends and say, listen, even though we asked both of you, what this really means is only one of you. And I can tell you that all of the times that I have worked with people and in my own conversations, that is never. Been an issue. People understand whenever you're asking for something and then people are like feeling so honored that you've asked them, they Just want to serve you and they want to help you.

And if it helps you to have one person named instead of both, and you say, we love both of you. The only reason that we ended up selecting this one individual is because on paper to a judge that doesn't know you and doesn't know us and doesn't know our history. It actually seems like. On paper, we can just make a much stronger argument.

And here are the reasons. I can tell you, it's no big deal. It really is not received as a slight. So if that at all is something that has been keeping you in resistance or keeping you from moving forward, I just want to dismiss that and say, I completely understand where you're coming from, but it actually doesn't need to be the case.

So now, of course, if you have. identified these two individuals or families that you want to serve as the guardian for your minor child in the very unlikely event that both parents of the child die. Then, of course, you need to have these documents drafted by an attorney, so you work with your attorney on that.

But one of the things that I most love, which is outside of the general legal drafting, is thinking through the legacy piece of this. And what I mean is, in the very unlikely case, That your named guardians need to step in. How can you best set them up for success? So I want to share a little bit of what I'm doing and.

Of course, take or leave. Maybe it doesn't feel right, but on the off chance that it does, I just want to share. One of the things that I do is I have a whole photo album that I've started, and it's all about me. In the cloud. I have a whole photo album I've started of photos from when Hudson was just a baby and I continue to add to that album.

And one of the things I've done, I have this big, big family album is I've called those photos. And I've created a mini album with some of the most important milestone pictures from this big family album. And I have the, that cloud folder shared with both. Named guardians. I want them to be able to continue to see how he's growing, to have their own library, to look back in hindsight and recognize certain types of growth and certain big events that have happened in his life.

And I also want them to feel like if for some reason they need to refer. Hudson to his childhood, and maybe to parts of it that they weren't physically present at, they still can. They have a portal into his childhood, and they have that portal through these photos. And in sharing this, I always encourage them to ask any questions.

Any questions that they have about these photos. And so it's really fun because you're choosing these people that you love, right? And they've probably seen a lot of these photos before, or maybe they were present at some of the moments, but it's a really fun opportunity to relive some of your favorite memories and almost make it memories that are lived in them so that should they ever need to become the storytellers.

of Hudson's childhood, they can. The second thing that I do, um, that I, I don't know, I just think is really fun, is I have a Google document that I share with the guardians where I write my interactions with them, with the guardians, and our family's interactions with the guardians. So for instance, If we spend a weekend with them and we had a really great time, I write that down.

I write a paragraph about that because I want it to be really obvious that Hudson has a relationship with these people that we've chosen. And again, this could be for the guardians themselves to jog their memory about times they've had. I also feel like when Hudson gets older. It could be this really beautiful timeline of how these guardians have always been a part of his life.

And so we start, of course, from baby pictures, um, or baby presents that were sent, how I felt during pregnancy and how These, um, friends and these identified guardians were the ones that, you know, supported me or something, um, thoughtful that they shared or that they sent or they had delivered. And then we just, I just continued to build this out.

Now, if you're in a situation where one of the guardians or both guardians you've chosen actually don't have a real relationship with your minor child, um, then what I would recommend is The third and final legacy element that I do, and that's where I write, I have a running document. These are all just Google Docs that I share out with the guardians about why I chose them.

I want it to be so crystal clear that I, the mama of Hudson, am choosing them for this particular and precise reason. That there is no one else on the planet. That is better equipped to do this. So this is almost my encouragement. And I guess if they're listening to this, it's because I've passed. So my encouragement from the grave that they can do this anytime parents die and guardians have to step in, it can feel like an insurmountable challenge.

And I want to make sure that the people that we've chosen to be guardians are As prepared as possible, and some of that, honestly, might just be mindset. I want them to be able to play my voice or read my words anytime they wonder, Oh my gosh, Allison, I don't want to let you down. Can I really do this? So, those are the three legacy pieces that I have in place when it comes to my own passing.

And when I say plan my own funeral, I don't really just mean the day, I mean the entire legacy of it. And so, those are, The three main legacy pieces that I have that I really hope will connect Hudson, in the very unlikely case this happens, to the guardians that we've chosen to care for him before he turns 18.

I just am pausing because this is such a heavy topic. But sometimes, part of me feels like, because it's such a heavy topic, it actually can be light. It's so sad, and so devastating, that instead of just carrying this, like, I just want to let it be buoyant, and I want to let it be the most beautiful, vibrant expression of, Me being a mama to my son that it possibly can be.

And so that's part of why I'm going to have this segment on the cozy caregiver cafe podcast, because when things are really heavy, like death. Like caregiving, like illness, when things are really heavy, I found there actually is a way to make them lighter. And the way to make them lighter is simply by deciding they're not as heavy as you think they are.

Thank you for coming along on this journey with me. I love you all. I'm so just honored to be in community with you. If you have any thoughts or feelings about this episode, I know that it's a little controversial. Please email me at hello at cozycaregivercafe. com. Of course, I want to hear them. If you want more of this content, please let me know.

If you have questions, I would love to be able to answer them on the podcast. And if you don't want to hear this, I want to know that too. I'm here to serve you. I'm here to love on you because I know you're loving on so many others and I'm just so grateful for you. Thank you. Bye.