hi i'm stacy from the belmont health collaborative thank you for joining us today i wanted to introduce my guest gwen morgan and gwen is the author of the what if workbook thanks for coming today glenn thank you so much for having me yes so could you tell us about the what if workbook sure so i actually wrote the workbook based on a lot of personal experiences i was a hospice volunteer for years and through that i found that i just loved working with seniors in the elderly so i started working for a local home care agency and through that i found that sometimes here i was visiting these elders and a lot of times they didn't have great communication with their families which i found so sad and they were telling me all these great stories and they were wonderful and i thought boy sometimes communication with families isn't that great and so i was all that and the my mom passed away that was in one thousand nine hundred six and i just remember i mean if you've ever had somebody close to you pass you only have like three days to get everything together and we were kind of in a tizzy around it and then fast forward four years my aunt jeanette passed away and my cousin michelle was calm cool collected and at the reception after her funeral my aunt's funeral i said we show you seem so calm and she said mom was great she wrote everything down for us she wrote down the scriptures she wanted said to him she wanted sung what dress she was going to be laid buried in i mean be laid out and i remember when my mom passed it was like this sort of disagreement between my sister and my dad about the dress you know and so and then she said that she had pre purchased the burial stones for her in her my uncle and she wanted to be buried with her bible in a rosary it was just wonderful and this was in two thousand and i thought wouldn't it be great to have some sort of fill in the blank guide to lead us all through the process of getting your affairs together in one place like are like who to call if something happens what your financial stuff is what banks do you have what are the count the usernames and passwords the account numbers you know all your financial stuff do you have i where your life insurance is you have long term hair insurance that in the end you know your final wishes do you want to be buried you want to be cremated again what scriptures do you want to do your service and really the premise behind the workbook is you know what if what if something unexpected were to happen to you does anybody know about your stuff do they know you know where your financial documents are do they know where they're located do you have a will and then i do workshops and seminars around the workbook to try to create a space for people to confront these issues which are often seemed difficult to talk about you know nobody wants to talk about that and so to create a space where it's non threatening and just it's just practical because i really encourage people to do it when they're well when they're of sound mind and body before a crisis happens rather than waiting until there is the diagnosis and then then it can be a little threatening but in my workshops i say hey you know we're all going to die it's inevitable we're all dying as we speak but for all of them over we're going to be fifty years from now of course to think about those things and what a gift it would be and what a peace of mind it would be for them it would be a gift to their families a peace of mind for them to be able to say you know so i wrote the workbook this is it it's just easy fill in the blank guide to lead people through the process but if you have this gift to say ok i have this book i have it in a safe place this is where the safe place is so if anything happens everything that you need to know is in there and it's also what if you know what if there's a flood what if there's a fire what if there's an earthquake mother nature these days is a little angry i mean she's doing pretty crazy things so i actually recommend that people get one of those fireproof lock boxes and put that workbook or if you don't have the workbook i'll talk a little bit about what i have in the workbook so people will know probably the important things to have as a lot of people say i want to get my stuff together but i don't know where to start  now so that's why i wrote this and it's a work in progress whenever i do a new jane i always have some suggestions from people that may i can add to it so i suggest you get the fireproof lock box put in your workbook or your yellow pad of paper you have all your stuff written down in then put in your passports put in your birth certificates put in your social security cards put in your insurance policies if you have an inventory of your household goods put that in there if you have your jewelry appraisals put that in anything you can think  of if you're a veteran your d d two fourteen papers are really important those your discharge papers that give you a lot of benefits while you're alive you could have benefits if you need them and then also when you do pass you could be buried in the local military cemetery for free with your spouse and your spouse can join you know when that happens so i suggest that they get this box put everything in it and then hide it somewhere in their house so we say maybe in some far away closet cover it with clothes because people say well you know you just told me to put down my account number username and what if we get rob and so i say put it in an out of the way place so that if something happened the earthquake the flood the tornado whatever you can grab all that and it's just in a nice place that you can grab it because i remember hurricane sandy a couple years ago in the new york area it had you know evacuated evacuate these are where the shelters are bring your birth certificate your passport your i d if you can find it funny  so if you have it all in one spot you have all of your important information in one place so again i encourage people to do it when they're well before there's a crisis in a lot of people say well you know who should fill out the book and i say i think once you have a child and it's really important to fill this out just all the things that you want to write down there's actually a children's page i borrowed from an attorney friend of mine who did a blog about it said you know i have so many clients that when they go away on a trip they have all these specifications on their pets you know that's a they're pets and they don't really put their kids so it's sort of this bill in the blank guide you know my children what are their likes their dislikes their medications their allergies you know what who can pick them up at school who claim them up at school you know that kind of stuff and so once you have a child but i say especially if you're single you know who's going to know about your stuff and you know i'm my sister i love her dearly she's three years older than me no kids hasn't been married and so i know that i'm going to be having to take care of her affairs and i keep saying you know i really want to fill out the workbook and everyone my family of the workbook you know and so we sat down one day and i just sat next to her and she wrote down all or account numbers and you know and then her final wishes did she want to be buried or cremated what kind of service she wanted in her case she wanted to be cremated or trying to decide where and i said you got to make a decision and we had been talking about it on occasion over the last few years and i said you got to write it down so that i'll know if she wrote it down and i can't even remember what she said but i know where her book is and it's just and she's like writing a lot of because this is this is i think what this what a sense of peace of mind for both the person doing it and their family exactly you know that exactly yeah i was kind of the same thing with my dad you know my brother and i are the trustees of his estate and he just didn't want to tell us anything yeah that's my dad at w to know this or you don't have to know this now in his you know he's a he likes to keep all his papers and it's just piles again i'm from new hampshire i went up to new hampshire and spent two two hour what if days with him sat at the dining room table and we started in the other personal information you know his name and so security number and where he worked all the and then we got to the contacts you know in case something happened who we call and he looked at his address book out and he's writing in his friends and then you know his attorney his financial advisor the social groups that he's in you know who would i want to call and then he actually before i wrote the workbook gave a suggestion of my parents built a home in maine in the one nine hundred fifty s and they lived there and then when they passed my dad has it and he rents it out in this in the summer to get some income on it and then in the winter we use it sort of our camp david for a little retreat center it's beautiful right in the ocean and he said you know it would be good if people have a second home or say you wanted to keep someone's home in the family it might need some work before you sell it to know who their plumber is who they are electrician is who they're landscaper is in our case you know there's the snowplow guy in the maintenance guy and then in the summer though the whoever does the lawn and all that and i thought that was a great idea so for people to know jed know who is familiar with the house or say you have a home when you pass and it needs some work to have somebody who knows the house and you can trust so anyway so i'm sitting with my dad and so we're going through all these contacts who to call and you know that was really helpful and then we get to the part about the financial so where's your back dad he writes it down i said so what's the account now i don't  didn't know this would happen and so i said that's great i don't want to know it now but if anything were to happen to you it would be so great for my brother and i to have this information and so the account numbers who do you deal with that i deal with jane whatever name is at the bank you know she's like yeah so yeah great write that down what are your account numbers he doesn't know how to use a computer so there's not that but so all that and then with so we're going along he's putting his ira isn't hello that he says you know this is could yeah this is going to be good for you guys to know so we agreed on a place a safe place to put it and it's in his house and i know where it is and he was really good and you know just to go along so yes a week and then i'll talk about again he's just such a character so we get to the part about the obituary there's a place to write your obituary and he had always said you know i want her i want everyone to know i want to it when all the great stuff that i've done i want to write you a bitch word before i die so i said well dad here's the point oh i don't want to do it right  i say we don't have to write it all out but let's just outline and in for most people i think we know where our loved ones where they were born and where they went to school what they did for a living but i say maybe there's some volunteer thing you did or some award you god or some sense of study that you did and so you'd want to add that and so he said you know his time in them in so we kind of went over some stuff and i knew that and his time in the military was important to him he was in the mill flick six months yet he was an m p and i  but he said no we said it's a great organization they do great fundraising they do charitable things you know community never would have known that you know you don't in the woman talk about like your volunteer work so randomly doesn't know exactly you sort really encourage people if they can sit with their loved ones you know usually sometimes the adult children don't want to do this because mom and dad are going to be here forever and they don't want to talk about it or mom and dad don't want to talk about it and it's just a great great gift that's a really reason i wrote it  a resource to open the conversation like i have one of these i filled it out i think it's a gift to my family to know about their stuff and could we do this so yeah but i found out about you know charitable organizations that he'd like have after he goes to have people make a donation in his memory i never would have known about that so i say if you're single specifically if you've had a child if you're single it's important to get this and have someone that you really trust know where it is and  then even if you're married you know usually or in a partnership usually one or the other handles all of the household stuff in the other one doesn't have a clue exactly and so i've heard so many examples you know i was reading a book d christian northrup you know the wisdom of menopause it's a great one anyway this was years ago when i was just writing it and she wrote about a woman and she was in a relationship mean married flecked forty years her husband was a successful attorney i think and then up like that he says i'm leaving you and he left her new course she's devastated but she had never written a check she didn't know about the family budgets and she was beyond be emotionally devastated she had no idea what her finances were as she doesn't know you know what if he was just hiding things for the last couple years so really encourage cup to sit down and do it together and when i am when i first wrote the book my husband and i we each had our own workbooks and in our situation he traveled a lot when our kids were growing up so i kind of handled all of the household management stuff and it scares me to think that if anything happened to me he would know so we went out went out to dinner and the first part you know who to call in the finances in his eye just put see when you know you don't have t both want our ashes scattered we don't think person that we don't need to sell it but other people could have completely differently that you know they want to go to the family plot there where they're all their families buried in i hear great stories at my workshops  know one woman goes well i'm a spouse number three but let everybody know that i want to be with my first where you know wherever he was in so just to have those conversations and maybe you know you grew up in the midwest but you've lived in new england for forty years you know do you want to go back to where you were born or maybe you were a family is and so i think even we don't think about that and so but what a gift that is and you know you know if specially if something unexpected were to happen you know what were what would mom and dad have wanted you know so it's just a gift and i've heard numerous occasions where people had that conversation and then on a whole nother topic that's important as you know the end of life discussions is you know what are your end of life wishes are you a minimalist or a maximum you know do you want everything done that could absolutely keep you alive no matter how sick you feel or you say maybe i won't live as long i want my quality of life if i don't recognize you book to really get people organized in a holistic you know kind of covering all the bases level whereas the five wishes is something that you had to fill in the blank guide to help people go through that end of life discussion if you know do you want a breathing tube do you want to be int d and under what circumstances in i love it says i want you to hold my hand i want you to have i want to have my pet with me you know all that kind of thing so it really lets you go through the conversation which is tough yeah which is tough even said one of the things that you do is workshops to speak to the conversation being tough that you know you might get this book has to really hard you don't want to face it even though it's very in front of you right so you actually offer some services to help people get through the book yeah so i do workshops i call one the interactive what if workshop actually just did one yesterday it was awesome so people buy the book and then we have a workshop where they actually go through it because i'm thrilled that people are buying the book i really think about some accountability beason that i can throw in so the interactive what if workshop is when we all gather is a group and they pay a small fee and we do for an hour and a half we actually go step by step through the word magic and then you know just talk about what is in it and  and so who to call so they start writing these out and i always say in mine because i'm lazy i wrote in my work book this is where my address book is for love i mean my address book i wrote you know this is my cousin  grab this is my college friend because i have my husband my two adult children and they pretty much know all the people in my world in our town but they probably don't know those people and so i wrote that but there's a place to write you know i get i'm your attorney your iras all of that so if the interactive workshops you know i give them a little time to lease write their banks or their mortgage you know where their mortgages in their car loan and all that kind of stuff so then you know they need to go home now and get all those account numbers and all the online banking stuff and usernames passwords so there's all of that so these are for people who you know you can purchase the workbook on my website but if you just want to get your fares together these are the things that people say i don't know where to start so i'm happy to give this information up so all your financial stuff your real estate where is your deed where is your mortgage all that stuff and then the really important important porton pieces documents storage and i want to talk about the three important documents that i always say  my workshops are imperative to have you want to have in massachusetts it's a health care proxy but your advanced medical directive who's going to choose to make your medical decisions for you if you're not able to speak if you're in a coma if you're under in this the it's just something happens those are th is the person that you choose in an alternate in case that person is not available who will make your medical decisions for you and so it's really important to have that end of life discussion that we talked about and you really want to choose someone who you've talked about your ethical your moral values of looking at life and would probably agree with them so it would make it easier at my workshops i find a lot of people say they don't want to choose their spouse because they don't want a lot of the medical stuff happen to them they don't want it and so the spouse may not be able to not you know to pull the plug or whatever yet in so you also want some of the strong voice because when you're in the hospital or somewhere in there's a lot of people who are in daughter son may disagree but you're their friend someone shows you have the authority to make the decisions because you've had the conversation health care proxy advance medical directive and then you want to get it in that you can download from the internet the just do mass health care proxy and it just has to be witnessed by two people a durable power of attorney you have to get through an attorney and if you choose the person that will make your legal decisions for you if you're unable to speak same situation but they can write in your checkbook they can sell your stocks and bonds they can sell your home so you really want to choose somebody who you trust explicitly with your finances and your money and again you want to have the conversation and they love it when you have the workbook because they know where everything is and what your stuff is so that's a double patrone need to get that through an attorney and then the third pieces to have at least a will if not in a state plan in you should really get a state plan together in for those two you need an attorney and i really recommend working within a state attorney or an elder care attorney because they specialize in that and they know the questions to ask you don't want somebody who does real estate right where it is you know looks on this on the side it's a lot of people say  that's so expensive i've heard it's really expensive but i work with a lot of elder care tourney's in financial planners and people like that in the attorneys say that they they get more money from people when cleaning up in a state and cleaning it up and it's emotionally draining it's financially draining it's a pain for the people who have to look after the stuff but they said if they it is probably a couple thousand dollars but the attorney knows the questions to ask they set it up right they get a good plan together for the person and then when the person passes it goes who seamlessly because it's a pain to have to clean up if the and don't do wills dot com and download it i mean you can but it's just my my advice is to really work with a good attorney and to have those three documents in place the health care proxy durable power of attorney or in a will if not in a state plan and then when you're on this document storage page so you've done a great job where are combination or in the security box there's a place in here for the do you have a security lock box at your bank who is on the cards who where are the key you know all those important things so it's i think it's pretty concise and just lets you think about oh yeah that's really important to have in place so in other important papers are you know again what we can type of for your passport your marriage certificates your a death certificate of your spouse if that's the case if you're a veteran your d d two fourteen papers you really want to have all that in place your insurance policies all that so yes so i was just going to say so my what a philosophy i kind of like to tell people about is to get your fares together write them down tell someone number two tell some and communicate to somebody that you've done it and hopefully maybe sit down with your loved ones and say this is my stuff this is where it is and these are my wishes is specially when you get to the final wishes you know do you want to be buried you want to be cremated you want to donate your is and so to think about that now i share stories of people i been doing workshops i did workshops when i first started we do it three weeks in a row and people go home and have homework and we talk about it in one woman at one of mine came back and she said she told ahe would be cremated where she wanted her ashes scattered and he said i absolutely cannot do that that would be way too difficult for me so and says that i had no idea that he had an issue around that and so i don't know what they came to agreement on but i know that they talked about it and probably came up with a solution and so to talk about these things absolutely war you know do you want a huge party after your gun or do you want to intimate just family friends you know by the beach or on my lake or on the mountain or know the funeral home right there is fine or do you want to big church service do you know do you want the ten thousand mahogany casket thousand dollar mahogany casket or a pile of boxes five i want to help my kids or my grandkids education  you know who were who do want to cater it you know all that kind of stuff made so much that it makes so much sense because as i say to people a lot of people say what so morbid but to me if you do it as a practical  exercise so to speak it's really honoring your life you know we're born in there is joy and celebration and we live our lives hopefully as purposefully and joyfully as we can and we die and i think maybe it's my hospice volunteer ian that you know to me it's the circle of it's all important pieces of our life and nobody wants to talk about this but i think there is a kind of a buzz i think in the communities right now to have those end of life discussion is to be honest about them there's the five which is like i said and there's also if you're the conversation project you know ellen goodman is connell was it is a kind of alice yet for the globe in i think again i think all of us have these personal experiences that lead us to do what we  do i guess she was very close with her mother her whole life had a great relationship but when it came to the end she realised she had no idea about mater what her mother would have won it in the whole end of life discussion so she is working with a group of experts and they have so called the conversation project dot org it's online and it has what they call the starter kit on how to have examples of how to start that end of life discussion you know there's a big talk about talking turkey at thanksgiving done one of my workshops before and here she was here again i said you did think it was that's how it's often but she said one thing that stuck out with doing it last time was having that end of life discuss and so she said less mother's day she had the death talk with her kids or kids ago and mom really she goes you know but i wanted to do it and i was committed to doing it and i did and i feel so much better now right and then they do to you and i'm sure they want they went home when they got i feel so much better i only and things change so i dot com and you can get this hardcover copy a hard hard copy their twenty five dollars and they also comes as an e book which are twenty dollars and for people that want to type it so they get an electronic file its  exact same information open it up type everything in save it as a document and then they can share it with their family or if they don't do online stuff they can call me at seven eight one two one zero two zero four five wonderful thank you so much  today i think this is important such a service thank you for having me i would say it's my mission slash ministry to be out here trying to create the space to don't be threatened by it is just so important and practical going to get you back in town to do any workshops i would