Grief, Impermanence, and End-of-Life Planning with Jermaine Ee

Death doula and funeral celebrant Jill McClennen hosts Jermaine on Seeing Death Clearly to explore how talking about death can lead to more conscious living. 

Jermaine shares how a conversation revealed his mother did not understand how her 401(k) connected to real choices, which led him to help her intentionally live out long-held dreams through travel before she died suddenly from a stroke. They discuss grief, regrets, impermanence, and how cultural habits and fear drive inaction around money, dying, and legacy planning, even when tools exist. 

Jermaine describes family, seasons of life, and the importance of using meaningful things now rather than saving them for later, including receiving gifts as expressions of love. 

He introduces HeirLight, an AI-guided end-of-life planning tool that helps people create wills and other documents more easily and in multiple languages.

00:00 Compounding Blind Spots

00:20 Meet the Host and Guest

01:37 Jermaine on Family and Travel

03:09 Seasons of Life and Regrets

05:58 Money Fear and Die With Zero

09:26 Mom’s 401k Wake Up Call

12:38 Dream Trip and Sudden Stroke

17:18 Inaction and Cultural Barriers

22:34 Buddhism Stoicism and Impermanence

28:20 Vipassana Retreat Story

31:16 Meditation Intensity and Grace

33:07 War Changes Perspective

35:11 Use the Good Stuff

37:55 Learning to Receive

40:47 Perfect Tuesday Mindset

45:07 Time With Elders

47:40 Community Over Stuff

49:59 Building an Estate App

56:06 How the App Works

01:00:38 Simple Will Basics

01:03:12 Closing and Next Steps

https://heirlight.com/en

YouTube video of Jermaine and his parents "They came here with nothing. 40 years later, we went back."

Transcript

Jermaine : [00:00:00] We're urgent about the wrong things, and we have a very, very hard time understanding things like compounding. Not just compounding interest in terms of savings, but like compounding on all the donuts we're eating. I think we're really bad at visualizing what the extra 40 pounds of fat means at the end of 10 years.

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and funeral celebrant. Here on my show, I have honest conversations with my guests about death, dying grief, and how all of that shapes the way that we live. 

In this episode, I'm joined by Jermaine Ee. Jermaine shares a deeply personal story about his mother, how conversations with her revealed she didn't fully understand how her savings translated into real life choices.

That realization led to years of intentionally helping her live out her dreams. Before she died. Suddenly from a stroke, we explore grief, impermanence, and cultural barriers that can make it hard to have honest end of life conversations. [00:01:00] And we talk about the regrets that can come when we avoid them.

Jermaine also introduces his work with Air Light, a tool he designed to make end of life planning more accessible and less overwhelming. Thank you for joining us for this conversation. Welcome, ate into the podcast. Thank you for joining me today. Can you just tell me, first off, about you, where you come from, anything that you wanna share about you outside of the work that you do?

Jermaine : Yeah. Most of me is outside of the work that I do. In fact, sometimes I feel like my work is my hobby. We're recording this on a Saturday morning and I'm here. I am in my office because it's my happy place. It's quiet. There's nobody else here. I like to describe myself first and foremost as a son and a brother.

I think that takes up a huge part of who I am. I spend almost every day chatting with my siblings. Talking to my dad and, and my mom. I think family is probably at the center of everything that I do. It's how I design my life. It's how I want to spend all my time. And then I have a partner, and we travel a lot.

So we've done [00:02:00] 27 countries in the last three years because we know at some point we're gonna have kids and we're probably not gonna be able to go to India and see the Taj Mahal. And so about three years ago we decided to do that. And so I would say I'm a very intentional person in terms of how do I wanna spend the time that I have?

Jill: And you're very young to have that much knowledge and wisdom about living your life because I find it definitely took a lot of us. You know, I'm 47 now. It definitely took a lot of us quite a few years to get to that point of being like, oh, maybe I should live my life with a little more intention. And you're right, once you have kids, I had this idea in my mind of like, no, we'll still travel, we'll just take the kids with us.

But between the money and just the aggravation of traveling with children, and I love my kids dearly, but it doesn't. End up being a pleasurable experience sometimes when you're lugging around two kids and trying to do all the stuff. So good for you that you did all the traveling nail that you could before you had all those [00:03:00] things.

I don't know, to not weigh you down because having children is one of the greatest joys I've ever had in my life, but it definitely changes things. 

Jermaine : Yeah. I think it's like this concept of seasons of life, right? It's like once you're past your twenties, you don't want to be backpacking you up in a hostel, even if you can.

It's just not the same because you're gonna be the oldest person in a hostel and then once you're in your thirties, you're like, oh, maybe you should travel long travel slow travel, right? You take your time, you enjoy sipping a wine by the river in Porto or something like that. And then once you're in your forties, maybe, oh wait, I should've probably bungee jumped the last time in when I was 35 because now that I'm 45, maybe I shouldn't be bungee jumping.

And so I think like. I think a lot about, you know, when in our life can we do the things that we want to do, and then that era's gone and it'll never come back. And so I was driving Uber when I was in university because I was like, you know what this is, [00:04:00] I need to figure out how to make money to have a startup.

So this is probably the time to do it. Like I'm just gonna drive super early in the morning and super late into the night and yeah, just work like 18 hours a day because I hope when I'm 30, 40 I don't have to do it. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, it is interesting how naturally with aging things do change where now I joke that I'm old and I don't feel old in a lot of ways, but there's definitely things that have changed where I don't wanna be out late at night partying like I wanted to do when I was younger.

I'm much happier and more comfortable. At home on the couch in my pajamas. And if you would've told me that in my twenties, I would've been like, oh, whatever. Like, you're never gonna wanna stop doing all these things. But I just have found so much more peace now at home. And like I said, with traveling, traveling is definitely different [00:05:00] now the things that I want to do.

And yes, I never tried bungee jumping when I was younger, and now is definitely not the time to do it because I'm a little more fragile. The bones get a little bit more fragile as you get older. So yeah, it is interesting this seasons of life and not fighting it either. I think a lot of people fight what season they're in or they don't embrace it the way that they should.

And then that's when I talk to people, not that everybody I talk to that's at the end of life is elderly, because there's for sure some people that are younger that are my age that are dying from different things. But especially when I talk to people that are a little bit older and the regrets that they have.

It's not embracing things that they should have done at different seasons in their life because they were trying to force it to be something that it wasn't, which is unfortunate. It makes me sad to hear people talk about the regrets that they have of not doing things when they could have done them for a variety of reasons.

Jermaine : I heard this thing somewhere, [00:06:00] and I think it's pretty well documented now, that people overestimate how much they will spend when they're older. As you get older, there's less things you can do. Let's say you think, oh, when I'm 70 to 80, I want to have X amount of dollars saved up pension, however you do it, because I wanna do all these things.

But as you get older, what ends up happening is your mood changes about things you don't spend because they got wiser. They don't spend because their energy level isn't there anymore, their interest isn't there. And if there's a health challenge. The most exciting thing people probably in their eighties can do is when their grandkids visit.

And that doesn't cost much. And so I think about this actually a lot that you know, like what are people saving for it? I think people, a lot of people probably save for the unknown. The fear of like, Ooh, what if I don't have enough when I'm 80? And that's probably a [00:07:00] good thing, but I think there's probably there there about to be a balance somewhere, right?

There's like, there has to be a balance somewhere where you're like, okay, I gotta spend some to enjoy it in my forties but still have it for the eighties. Even though the things I do in the eighties will cost much less like a cruise. Even if you go on a cruise for three months of the year, it's just not gonna cost the same as you flying to a pizza right now.

And ha having a wine in the south of France or something like that, you know? It's just not the same. Well 

Jill: that's interesting actually. I had not heard that. It also is not that surprising when I think about it and. You're right. I think a lot of it is the fear. There's like the hoarding of the resources because that's one of the things that I think I get frustrated sometimes with like the boomers, you know, my parents are boomers, my aunts, my uncles, right?

I'm observing the boomers and I'm like, they are hoarding so much resources. Some of them are even still working. And it's like people my age, people younger [00:08:00] than me, we can't get jobs. But yet you got people in their seventies still working when I know they also own multiple houses. They have plenty of money.

What are you doing? Like why are you hoarding all this stuff? But it's fear. It's just this fear that they're living with. And I try to be compassionate around that idea. But I'd also read a book a couple years ago that somebody recommended to me called Die With Zero. And the guy that wrote it, he had made a lot of money.

Again, he just was like making money and making money and saving it, and saving and saving, and eventually was like, why am I not spending this money on things that I enjoyed? Suddenly he started throwing massive parties for his friends and his family because why make this money if we're not going to enjoy it?

And you're right. When I'm in my eighties, I'm not gonna wanna do some of the things that I would spend money on now doing, even camping and going on trips, visiting national parks, that I'm not gonna be able to do that in my eighties. So why not take the money now and go, I don't know some other state [00:09:00] and visit a national park with my kids?

But there is fear even for me of like, what's it gonna look like when I'm in my eighties? Am I gonna have enough money? What happens if my husband gets really sick? Am I gonna be able to afford to care for him? But I try to not live with that fear, right? I try to be present and live in this moment and be like, but for right now, I'm gonna enjoy my life as best as I can.

Also making sure I don't, you know, bankrupt this either. So there's that. 

Jermaine : There's certainly so many things that lead up to how people think about money. For my mom, the person who inspired what I'm doing right now, it was this conversation that I had with her actually right down the street here in a Thai restaurant.

And I just asked her, I think she was 59 at the time, and I said, how long do you wanna work for? You can probably reasonably start slowing down and doing all the things that you wanted to do before you had four kids. And I'm the oldest of four. And what I realized was that she had this [00:10:00] underlying lack of clarity of how her 401k translates into the rest of her life.

And that's a big question because I think we do a very bad job as a society to educate people on financial literacy. That alongside the emphasis on productivity. We value so much of what we're worth based on how much productivity we can have and what net worth are we even subconsciously, just because that is the surrounding.

I travel a lot and when I come back to the US I start talking in terms that are different. You know, sometimes I'm hanging out with friends in New York and I'm talking about valuations and asset under management and you know, what are these all even relevant to life fulfillment? And this conversation with my mom ended up making me realize that she didn't really have the clarity of what she have.

And in turn, if you don't know what you have, how could you possibly know what is [00:11:00] enough? And that's what set me off this journey with her. We started talking about what were your dreams before you had kids, what did you want to do? You know, what are things that you always thought about or you didn't think you can afford to go to?

And we started checking off those things one by one. And so it's been a fun last three years that we did that. 

Jill: Wow, that's so amazing. And you said your mother recently passed away, correct? Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm so sorry. 

Jermaine : Yeah. And you, you know, I'm so glad. It's part of why I am deciding to do podcasts now because I'm deciding to, I decided to do this because I wanted to share her stories and in the last three years of her life, the journey that she's been on, because since we had those conversations, it's actually many conversations that I realized that she came to the US in the late seventies.

She went to Oklahoma of all places. And back in those days, I mean, I've been to Oklahoma twice, and back in those days, she was the only Asian immigrant there. Yeah. Not the only, but [00:12:00] there's probably like 20 of them. And I just thought her entire war view of the US has just been anchored based on making enough money to survive.

In making enough money to have a family and, and at the end of it, making enough money to support her family, even though her four kids don't need that anymore. But she's so wired for that, that she forgot that she loved dancing, that she loved singing, and she loved all these things. And so having this conversation made me realize that my mom was growing up as I'm growing up, and she's only going to be 50, once 55, once 58, once.

And so what we realized was, for example, she wanted to go to the place where the sound of music was filmed in Borough. And as a little girl from a small town called IPO in Malaysia, the thought of going to Salzburg, Austria, it's impossible. It's just this land that is so far away from everything [00:13:00] that she ever knew.

And so this July we went to Austria, my girlfriend, my dad, and my mom. We went to Austria. We went to. Hungary, we road trip rented a car and we drove across the countryside and we ended up in Salzburg and we visited the church that Maria got married in the movie. Mm-hmm. And the hills that she ran on. And at some point my mom stopped and said, this is like a dream.

Like I'm standing in my dream because that little girl from EPO Malaysia could not have imagined that, you know, she would end up here. The sad twist of the story is that eight days after this trip she was hospitalized and then a few days after she passed, well it was sudden it was a stroke. But it just made me think like, how grateful am I that she had this experience and many more.

We traveled extensively the last few years, and if I never had those conversations with her, you know, I, I wouldn't have known. And how [00:14:00] many of us go to life not knowing what the people we love cared about and wanted so much. Before they were our parents. And so this is the journey I'm on right now. I'm building an app, I'm doing all these things, but what I really want is to help open up this conversation for people to be okay to have these unconventional conversations.

Not so much about death, but about how much life can we squeeze in on our little vacation here, you know, on earth. And so that's the journey I've been on. 

Jill: What a beautiful gift for both you and your mother to have had that conversation and then to have been able to give her those experiences so that you know, when she did die, at least there's the memories that you have that you created together, the time that you spent together.

And that's where I try to explain to people that really talking about death so much, thinking about death so much, it's really more about how I live my life now. [00:15:00] It's not about death itself, but somehow getting okay with talking about. What we want at the end of life, even again, even with our money, right?

Like what that experience is gonna look like for us, really does open us up to experiencing life in a way that we are not able to experience it if we're continuing to avoid those hard conversations. And you're right too about like money education. I mean, most of us were not taught well and I'm amazed at how many people, I look at people my age that at 47, 50 years old don't have a 401k and there's no pensions, right?

They don't have retirement accounts through their jobs. 'cause most of us have not had the opportunity to do, like my mother did, which was get a job and she worked at her entire career and she retired with, you know, benefits and a pension and all this stuff. It's scary. You know, I look at some of my friends and I'm like, what are y'all going to do?

[00:16:00] Because I'm not relying on social security. If it is great, but I'm not relying on that to help take care of me and my family. Thankfully, again, I read a lot and my husband's parents when we graduated college got him a book about like money and retirement and all those things. So we started 4 0 1 Ks when we were like in our early twenties because of reading this book.

So thankfully we have something, but yeah, I don't know. Is it gonna be enough to live off of? I'm not sure. You know, I don't know when enough is enough. I don't even know if that's information I could easily figure out on my own. Partially because there is that fear of not knowing, like what is life gonna look like in another 20 years, 30 years, you know, when I'm old enough that I'm not gonna wanna work.

I think that is an important part of this type of conversation, is that most of us don't understand. Finances at all, really. 

Jermaine : And you start seeing a trend of Americans retiring in other [00:17:00] countries, you start seeing Americans moving out, or Canadians as well, moving out to some places like Portugal. Portugal is a very popular one because the truth is it's cheaper and there is healthcare.

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Jermaine : And if you just buy into the system, things are probably more affordable. I think the question that I'm struggling with in my startup and in these conversations is inaction. You know, what would get people to take action? And that's the ultimate question. And I often get asked, Hey, who's your competitor?

And I'm like, you know, there's 70% of Americans that don't have an estate plan. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Jermaine : And it's probably not because of a lack of tools, it's just inaction, right? Mm-hmm. And I think that's the, yeah. What are some effective ways that you think can get people to. What have you seen that worked? So what I've identified is people start thinking about this when there's a few events that happen.

They buy a new house, [00:18:00] they start thinking about their finances long term, when they buy a new house, when they have a child, when a friend or someone closer to is ill, someone passes away a new career, a career change is something that gets people to thinking about things. But short of that, maybe a celebrity death.

But like other than that, it's an action, right? It's like, I'll get it done tomorrow. And not just estate plans. A lot of things, conversations like the one I had with my mom. It's also a lot of cultural difference. You know, growing up as a Chinese American, we don't say, I love you in the family, or we didn't.

Hmm. 

Jill: Yeah, 

Jermaine : it's a cultural difference. And we broke the barrier, you know? My siblings and I started texting my parents' hearts and then. From Hearts becomes Love used becomes. We sneak one here and there, and now my parents are very, my dad's very comfortable ending the call with a Love you. So there's cultural difference in how we think about things like that too.

Jill: And I love that you were able to convince your parents too, say, I love [00:19:00] you. Because I mean, you know, I think we all show our love in different ways, right? So even if we're not saying it, we have different ways that we show it, but there is something special about hearing it from somebody. So that's beautiful.

And as far as getting people to have these conversations, I think it is going to be an ongoing process of education and talking about it nonstop until people finally get comfortable. Because I'm in the same boat where I'm not talking about finances as much, but I do talk about finances if people have a will.

You know, like when I do end of life care plans with people. And so many people that I talk to that again, are my age, that are in their forties. And I'll say, you know, have you thought about what you want at the end of life? Oh, I don't need to talk about that now. I don't need to think about that now. And I'm like, well, if not now, when?

Because people die suddenly at every [00:20:00] age. But as I'm getting into my forties, I am starting to see more and more people that have died, whether it's a heart attack, a car accident, even one guy locally got into a fight, somebody punched him and he fell and he hit his head and he died. He was a father. Kids the same age as my kids.

So, you know, I am seeing it where I think that is part of what wakes us up to it. You're right that like once we see it in other people, but there's still so much hesitation and even with older people, you know, I've talked to folks when I've been out in public, like, you know, doing the thing where you set up your booth and you just talk to people.

And I've had people that are in their seventies, eighties being like, I don't need to think about this yet. I'm like, if not now, all when? So it's frustrating because I haven't found a single method that makes it easier to convince people that they need to talk about it. I mean, again, that's [00:21:00] why I have a podcast because I figure if I talk about it with people and then other people listen, maybe that'll help make it a little bit easier.

But there doesn't seem to be like that silver bullet that's gonna turn things around other than generations will change. Younger people, like younger than me in their twenties are actually more likely to talk to me about it than people that are in their forties. So some of it is generational, and I used to think culturally that other cultures were better about talking about that.

Then Americans that I've talked to people now from all areas of the world, and it doesn't seem to be, maybe in the past it was, but it seems like there's still a line of like, well, no, we don't talk about that. Like my family, we don't talk about death or what happens when somebody's aging. And I'm like, well, who talks about it then?

I wish there was an easy solution to get people to talk. I think it just takes persistence and talking about it ourselves and [00:22:00] podcasting. I'm gonna actually try some Facebook ads for end of life care plans and like just really trying to target it to people that are around my age, but are maybe people that are a little bit more, not that it's necessarily spiritual 'cause that's not really correct, but I think there's people that are a little bit more open to things that aren't with the norm.

Right? And so one of those things also happens to be talking about death. I think, but I don't know for sure. I'll see how it goes. 

Jermaine : It's, I mean, I think you're right in terms of spirituality, because I grew up in a Buddhist household, I'm not very Buddhist in the sense of like, I don't go to the temple, I don't pray or anything.

And in fact, you can probably even argue that Buddhism isn't a religion where you pray it's a way of life and all that. And so I should probably add in the beginning that I'm actually Malaysian Chinese American. And [00:23:00] Malaysia is a fascinating country because it is a Muslim majority, but about 40% of people are not Muslim.

So the rest of us of my family are Buddhist or Christian, mostly Protestant and Hindu. And so when I was growing up, my neighbor went to the mosque and my neighbor went to the church. When my mom passed, she happened to be back in Malaysia visiting family. And for the first month I really was like grappling with this ideas of, you know, the good old classic question of why do good things happen to bad people?

Mm-hmm. And, and I, I went through the stages of griefs of like being frustrated, angry, short-tempered. I, I didn't skip a beat though 'cause I was officially running two companies at the time as a very busy entrepreneur and with employees and all that. And so I just kept going. But I think Buddhism and a mix of stoicism probably landed me at the place of this concept of [00:24:00] impermanence.

I just feel like it was the most developed war view that helps accept why people move on. You know, there's no reason, there is no reason at all. And to fight to try to find an answer was causing much more suffering than anything else. And so it took me a while to let go because I'm sure I'm very biased, but I know.

When my mom passed, people surface resurfaced and came up to me and say, I'm still getting texts today, and say how my mom helped them and gave them money. Nobody ever knew about these things and all the things that she's done that I just didn't know. I mean, I knew she was, when we walked down the street and there's a homeless person on the street, she would turn around, go back to the car and find cash and like disrupt her entire day or entire flow.

I am so focused on what I'm doing that since she passed, I try [00:25:00] to, you know, sometimes we walk by and my girlfriend would say, your mom would've stopped. And so we do more than ever. And I think I just, yeah, I couldn't explain why, why her, you know, I think that's a common pattern of going through grief and I have a therapist and so we've been working through all these things and so I feel like I'm at a very good place.

I have way more gratitude than frustration. At the same time, I do realize that because of Buddhism and stoicism, even though my mom wouldn't have called it stoicism, it was just her way of thinking, I was able to have these conversations with my parents. Funny enough, my dad is very casual about this.

He's like, I just upped my life insurance. I just updated the trust. And then when my mom passed, my whole family, all five of us and our partners all went to do a body checkup. We're like, okay, let's not have a sudden stroke, do blood work, let's do MRIs, ultrasounds, and everything. Fully understanding that we are [00:26:00] privileged, that we we're able to afford it even.

And so we do all that in kind of in honor of her to make sure that we have clarity of our health. And so, yeah, back to this inaction thing, I think urgency or relationship of urgency in the US is out of whack. Mm-hmm. I think we're urgent about the wrong things. We have a very, very hard time understanding things like compounding, not just compounding interest in terms of savings, but like compounding on all the donuts we're eating.

You know, like what does it mean to eat two extra donuts per day or croissants? I think we're really bad at visualizing what that extra 40 pounds of fat means at the end of 10 years. And so, yeah, I'm not really sure what is the solution except to, you know, keep talking about it. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I [00:27:00] am a big fan of stoicism and actually I took my refuge vow at a Buddhist center in Philadelphia about, God, it's been like five years now because Buddhism and stoicism are the only two.

Philosophies. 'cause like you said, Buddhism, it could be argued whether it's a religion or not. The center I go to, they're like, it's not a religion, but yet we still do chants and stuff. So I'm like, feels kind of religion to me, but whatever. But it really was more about the way of owing life and death and non-attachment to things and being present.

Yeah, they definitely have both really shaped just the way that I view life. And I think that's also partially why I am so okay with death because of those two different things they've taught me that life is gonna have some suffering, it's gonna have some pain, it's also going to end at some point. And so avoiding thinking about that is not gonna prevent it from happening to us.

So [00:28:00] yeah, they're definitely both very helpful in, I think getting us to look at life a little bit differently. And in my opinion, it's a more healthy view than some other. Ways of looking at life. But again, I dunno, what do I really know in the long run, 

Jermaine : we're all trying to figure it out. Right? 

Jill: Yeah. 

Jermaine : Have you heard of Pasana?

Jill: Mm. Yeah. 

Jermaine : So last year in May, after India, my girlfriend and I, we flew over to DU in Nepal and we, we were on this journey. We wanted to visit where Krishna was born in India, but I got food poisoning and so we skipped it. Yeah. India was a challenge. I'm very well traveled and India, we went without a tour guide because that's how we'd like to travel.

We wanna soak it all up. And yes, I got food poisoning in a home stay. Mm-hmm. Eating local food and everything. I still highly recommend though t Mahal and all these places. I think it's worth going. Definitely once, so we [00:29:00] went to Nepal and recovering from a food poisoning, we stayed at a quite a nice hotel and we told them, Hey, we want to go see where Buddha was born.

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Jermaine : And it was a 10 hour bus ride. Through the countryside of Nepal. And many times the buses would have accidents because one driver's going 10 hours, you know? And so the concierge said you, you should definitely explore flying. But what they forgot to say is that the planes also fall off the sky.

One fell off the sky four months before we took it. And so it was like a 40 minute plane ride from Katmandu to this place called Binni, where Budha was born. It was sometime along this journey that we decided we were gonna go to the Pasana. For the listeners who have never heard of it, it's a 10 day meditation retreat.

It's free. In fact, you're not allowed to pay for it until Mm. You've completed it. Because the idea is that once you complete it, then you are able to give a donation to help future students. [00:30:00] And so you go to this place for 10 days, you're not allowed to talk to anyone. You're meditating from 4:00 AM I think, until 9:00 PM mm-hmm.

And. Admittedly, I did not finish. Really my, my girlfriend completed all 10 days and I left day three. Actually it's day two, day three, because I slept over twice. My mind was just, I was not able to sit still. I was not able to calm my mind. The excuse I gave myself was, I was finishing up with my food poisoning alongside jet lag as well as temperature chain.

Mm-hmm. It was super hot where we did it, but of course I didn't finish it. That's the fact. And so, yeah, vi pasta was cool. The things I took away, my dad did it twice when he was younger. 

Jill: Really? Oh, 

Jermaine : wow. 

Jill: Yeah, 

Jermaine : so we're in a family of doing things like that, and my girlfriend, she's Ukrainian. 

Jill: Really? 

Jermaine : Yeah. She's Orthodox Christian.

Mm-hmm. Race Orthodox Christian. I don't know how religious she really is. Probably like Christmas and Easter, but yeah, because she's on this journey, as you know, [00:31:00] Ukraine is going through an invasion from their neighbors right now, and she's going through this journey of. Also learning how to quiet her mind and how to let go of things that you can't control.

And so it's been, it's been fun to have her go through that. 

Jill: Actually, my family is from Ukraine, so Ukraine is actually, or Ukrainian is my heritage, I guess you'd say. My grandmother did not speak Ukrainian only a little bit, but she raised me and so a lot of like the food and the religious celebrations and things are very Ukrainian for me, so that's fun.

A friend of mine just did, I don't think it was Vipassana, it was something different, but it was in upstate New York, but it was the 10 days, the meditating from 4:00 AM But they did the thing where they like hit you with the sticks when you're like meditating. There's a term for it that I don't remember.

I'm not as into it as some of my friends from this meditation center, but it was fascinating like hearing about it afterwards and. Just, yeah, the level of [00:32:00] exhaustion because you're up at 4:00 AM and they had to run at four o'clock in the morning and you can't talk and it's just like the whole thing. So I was like, would you do it again?

And he was like, I don't know if I would, because it was that intense. But it was life changing, you know? Like it definitely altered his view and his way of observing life. It was fascinating that we just did it in November. So this was pretty recent and I definitely enjoyed hearing about it. And I was like, maybe one day.

But again, you know, my kids are still young enough now that like leaving them for that long, they were like, nah, you're not doing that. I'm like, maybe one day I will just to push myself to see how I do. But yeah. That's fascinating. But you're, so I actually teach about foodborne illnesses, food poisoning, right?

That's like part of what I do outside of my end of life work. So yes, if your body was recovering. From food poisoning, give yourself some grace that that is not the ideal time for you to be doing [00:33:00] something that intense, because it is very hard on your body. So give yourself a little grace about that.

Even a couple days after being through that experience must have been very difficult. 

Jermaine : Well, as my dad say, when the time is right, you'll go back. Mm-hmm. And you'll try it again. And he did it twice at very different times of his life. And my partner did it twice as well. She did it two years in a row. 

Jill: Wow.

Jermaine : And yeah, having her in my life, being Ukrainian, she was in Kyiv the morning of the invasion. So I, my entire life kind of shifted because I've never felt the need to look around and smell the roses as much as when I'm around her because it's like a daily reminder of. Mean, if you see the sunshine peaking through the back right now in January, it's like my life is very comfortable and all my problems are champagne problems.

They're all like first world problems. And [00:34:00] I've been to Kyiv twice now during the war, and just the resilience of the people and a lot of things that we take for granted here. You know, we, we are experiment of this democracy. It's like, I don't believe my vote counts. It's like, not, not to go too deep into this, but, but to watch her standing in the square and believing that her voice changes her government.

It's just, it's refreshing. It's really nice. It makes me feel so jaded about everything around me. And also, I distinctly remember one time meeting her friends and her friends wore very nice jewelry and I asked her like, do Ukrainians. Wear nice jewelry when they go out for dinner on Tuesday. I think her answer was something along the lines of like, we used to not, but since the war, you just never know when is your last day and if, what are you saving it for?

Yeah. And so if you have beautiful [00:35:00] necklaces, you should just wear it. And so that's true. I think the addition of her into my life had really changed the way I think about life being fragile and also things to enjoy. I, I feel like this is a story you've probably heard a lot, which is now I'm cleaning out my mom's things and I had gifted her things like expensive lotions.

It's like things that she, as an immigrant mom just hoard it. She just like kept it, used it slowly, even though there's an expiration date and now I'm going through her things and I'm like, wow, what? She never got to use it. And now I'm using it, you know, all these like little Le Laos lotions and many more I'm using, actually I'm using her face hydration cream that she had just bought because I'm like, I'm not gonna waste it.

I should just use it Uhhuh. And made me think of like all the things that I'm saving, like these bottles of wine that I'm saving and I'm like, what for? It is there gotta be, it's gotta be a balance at some point. 

Jill: Balance. Yes. [00:36:00] That's exactly it. It there has to be the balance because so many of us do that.

It makes me think of my grandmother. She had good China, right? I remember one night when my husband and I lived with her, when I moved home from California, we moved in with my grandmother. I remember one night we had made like gin and tonics or whatever and I used her good glasses and she was like really upset with me that I was using the good glasses.

To have a gin and tonic on like a Tuesday night kind of thing. At the time, I was like, all right, whatever. I'll just go buy my own. So I went to Goodwill and I found glasses almost exactly the same, and I bought them, and those are the ones we used. Now I have her China, I have my other grandmother's, China.

We all have so much of this stuff that people put so much value on. Like you only use it on special occasions. I use her China all the time now. I'm like, what is the point in having it if I'm not going to use it? And she'd be rolling over in her grave if she knew that some of her plates actually are under plants because I have a lot of plants [00:37:00] in the house.

But I feel like to me, every time I look at that plant that is on one of those China plates, I think of her. Why is it any better off sitting in a cabinet when I could have it out and looking at it every day because it's on or it's underneath a plant, right? But there's definitely this idea of when things are good, when they're special.

We wanna save them, and then we literally never use it. Because when is that time that's special enough to use the lotions, to use the China to wear the jewelry. And it's a shame because so many of us do that. But yeah, I'm glad that you're using this stuff now. That was your mother's, and when you use it, you think of her.

And that's the nice thing too. That's why I had so many things in my house that were my grandmother's, because now every time I look around, it reminds me of her and it makes me think of her. And I feel connected to her still, even though she's not here anymore. 

Jermaine : Yeah, I, I have a story on the other side of it, which is [00:38:00] from my end, I've been very bad at receiving gifts.

I think it's just a personality trait. You know, when my parents say, Hey, I wanna get you something nice for your birthday. And I'm like, I don't need anything. I'm a grownup. You know, you don't have to buy me anything. And for the last few years, my mom and dad, they've been saying, we want to get you a watch.

We know you like this Swiss engineering and all this little things that you care about, this mechanical stuff. And I always say no. I just say, I'm gonna buy this watch. When I hit a milestone in my career, that mattered to me. And when my mom passed, I distinctly remember thinking about this. I should have accepted a gift from her.

'cause I, I would love to have a watch from her now, you know, just to wear. So, to not waste any more time. I told my dad We're going to the watch store and we picked out something meaningful and, and something I'll, I'll never sell. You know, it's probably gonna go to my kid. And, and so it is like a [00:39:00] reminder to me that receiving gifts is also a form of love.

Mm-hmm. Because we're allowing people around us to do something nice for us. And I'm, I'm very bad at that. I'm still very bad at that. I, I don't think anyone around me knows what to get me because. I, I don't need a lot of things and I also buy everything I need. And so, so even if, yeah, I think that that was a really big lesson for me and I'm seeing how much of the joy that my parents could have had all these years.

I really, yeah. Didn't allow anyone to give me anything 

Jill: that, that is a great point. A lot of us are that way, I think, of not accepting gifts easily for a variety of reasons, right. There doesn't have to be a really good concrete reason why. And you're right. How it's great that now your father was able to buy it for you, but there definitely would've been a different meaning if it came from both your father and your mother.

But it's also too late to worry about it now. So don't beat yourself up. Don't get stuck in like the guilt and the shame about it. But that is a really good point [00:40:00] that we need to let the people around us give us gifts that mean something and. My grandmother, when I got married, she bought this brooch for me that I really wanted to wear on my wedding dress.

It was an antique. I had found it. I should probably wear it more because it's just been sitting in my jewelry box because it's so special. I'm afraid to wear it, but I love it. You know? It's like it. It was a gift from her. And even at that point, I almost didn't want her to because I was afraid she couldn't afford it.

It wasn't that much, but I still was like, can she afford this? But I am glad that I have it, and now that's actually a great reminder. Maybe I'll wear it next time I go to dinner, even if it's on a Tuesday night. I'll wear my little fancy art deco broach with a couple diamonds in it, because why not? If I don't wear it, then when's the time?

Jermaine : Yeah. And I like to use Tuesday because I've been thinking about this concept about a perfect Tuesday because we often plan for the weekends, and we often plan for that one vacation a year. And I think we should [00:41:00] be optimizing for what is a good Tuesday to us and. That's actually, so I'm sitting right here where my mom sat.

This is her office. And in during COVID, like many people, I started reflecting on life and who am I surrounding myself with? And at the time I was living in New York when COVID started, and I had a tiny, actually not that tiny apartment in Manhattan and but tiny enough that I couldn't host anyone. So I didn't see my parents too often.

And so when COVID hit, I had a heartbreak, a breakup with an ex. And I just realized that I wanted to spend more time with my parents because I was 29 at the time. I'm 34 now, so I was 29 at the time. And I was thinking I'm probably going to start a family in the next five to 10 years. And when that happens, I will see my parents five times a year because I intend to live near them.

And it's around the same time where my mom had some things happen in her [00:42:00] work. To keep the story short that she was not happy and she ended up leaving her job and starting a business with my dad and I, so it was the perfect time. So now this is her office. If I exit this door and go left, it's my office.

Jill: Hmm. 

Jermaine : And so for two, three years we had lunch together. Every time I'm here and we just went to the gym after work, I went to Zumba classes with her. It looked pretty funny sometimes and I just realized like a lot of times, yeah. I think it's great that you move back from San Francisco to the East coast because a lot of times people spend, you know, they don't realize that we have like 20 more visits with their parents.

Or maybe if they're lucky a little bit more because once a year for 20 years it's 20 visits. Mm-hmm. And, and this finite thinking helps us just optimize a little bit more. Actually, you mentioned the book Die of Zero, I think Bill [00:43:00] Perkins. Say somewhere on a podcast recently or in the past few months that he's been enjoying.

Actually, this may not be him, so don't quote me on it. Yeah. But he's been enjoying shorter trips more because he has the luxury of going on week long trips or multiple weeks. So it's like if you have two weeks in Paris versus if you had three days in Paris, you would plan it differently. Mm-hmm. You would plan it with more urgency, would squeeze more out of those three days.

And I think he said something like, he used to think that the freedom and the abundance affords him to travel slowly, but what he realized is he ends up taking it too slow that he's not really doing the things that, you know, visit someone visiting Paris should be doing. Mm-hmm. And so he started planning with a little bit more urgency, which is, it's kind of a unique concept.

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Jermaine : And I think I'm gonna start doing that more. 'cause I travel places a month at a time. So I go to Mexico and I stay for a month. I go to Argentina, I stay for a month. I work remotely. 

Jill: That definitely [00:44:00] makes a difference. You're right. Like if you go for shorter periods of time, it is a very different experience.

'cause actually my husband and I spent a month in Paris 20 years ago now. It was 2006. And yeah, it was amazing. We had a great time, but it's definitely a different experience than if we would have only gone for a few days. And I think there's also this idea too, that in order to plan a trip, it has to be this big deal when really like why not sneak in a couple days here and there whenever you can because yeah, life does pass us by and we don't know the last time.

And I think about my grandmother that if I would have stayed in California, she lived about four years after I moved home, and I saw her maybe twice a year when I lived in California. Because you know, California, New Jersey is a decent trip. So yeah, I would've only seen her eight times if it was twice a year for the last four years of her life.

Instead, I lived with her and I saw her literally every single day, which [00:45:00] was amazing. I really have no regrets in moving home to, you know, be there with her at the end of her life. 

Jermaine : It's also fun when you spend time with someone who's older in your family because you get to see where the world view of your parents came from.

Jill: Yeah. 

Jermaine : You know, it's like my grandma's 91 and I spent a lot of time with her because I work for Butley and she's in Malaysia. She has dementia, so she's now back to her teenage years and her teenage years when she was 14 to 17 is when the Japanese invaded Malaysia. So I get to hear stories about that and I get to see how that experience shaped her life and in turn how it shaped my father's life and his siblings and the dynamics between the family.

And so it's just fascinating and in some ways I have so much more empathy in the way my dad grew up. And to understand. His mother actually taught me so much about him. [00:46:00] Yeah, it's a beautiful experience. My grandma, she's very cute. She doesn't have memory really beyond like two hours. She forgets everything.

Yeah. And so I know which of the soccer matches of football matches that she likes. For example, she liked, she's like glowing in joy when she watches Germany destroy Brazil in the World Cup a few years ago. And she's like, wow. It happened again, again, again, every day to her. And some of these Manchester United matches are this baton matches that I know the results too.

So I'm just waiting for that moment when I know she's gonna light up and I'm just sitting next to her and I'm just enjoying that laughter again. So it's quite cool. 

Jill: Oh, and that's so wonderful that you're able to approach that experience with her like that because I find so many people when it comes to dementia, there's this discomfort.

The people around somebody with dementia that sitting through watching a soccer [00:47:00] game over and over and over again and knowing the results and also knowing that she's gonna have the same reaction is not easy for them. It's beautiful that you're able to do that with her and be like, you know what? I know she likes this game.

We're gonna watch it again. Why not? Right. Like to her, it's all brand new, so that's wonderful that you can do that and be with her because you're right. 91, my girl was 94 when she died. I mean, she was born in 1916, so she'd be how many years old now? Right. But it was a whole different world that she grew up in and I loved hearing her stories and about life and it did shape my mother and who she was, which in turn shaped me and who I am based off of her experiences.

Jermaine : There's, you know, we we're from a culture of community, so we live generational house generations in one household, whereas in the US people are more individual and. People are dying alone, aging alone, sometimes not very positively, like very [00:48:00] sad. And I think it's like there's this concept of like the whole thing of living near the highest indication of happiness is being close to the people that you like.

And as my friends get richer, they tend to move into bigger homes in gated neighborhoods and isolate themselves more. And I think they actually got it all wrong. I think if I had just unlimited money, I'd probably just buy up all the houses next to me and rent it to my friends for cheap. I think that's probably the highest return of happiness and longevity, because then I would just walk down the street and see my friends, you know?

And of course that's, maybe that will happen someday. But I do think that we have our priorities all in the wrong places. This dream that was sold to us is so. In some ways. So Americans are capitalistic, right? Getting a bigger house, a bigger car, and things that we don't need, more square footages that we're paying for, that has really no additional meaning to [00:49:00] how happy it'll make us or how fulfilled it'll make us.

And so, yeah, I'm grateful that my partner is European because she grew up in apartments. And so we know that space isn't equivalent to happiness or comfort, it's how you use the space. I'm happy to say that we're optimizing our life that way. 

Jill: Yeah, that is wonderful. Because you're right, so many Americans, I feel like it was lies that were sold to us, and in the end, so many people die with a big house with a bunch of stuff in it that nobody wants in the long run because they're all trying to pass it down to their kids.

And the kids are like, I have my own house full of crap. I don't need your crap. You know? And then they look back and their life was not as fulfilling and happy. Because they were constantly striving for this bigger house, more cars, more whatever, and not able to appreciate the things in life that actually make us happy.

But again, that's part of my mission is to try and change that. I [00:50:00] do wanna know about your business that you started, you know, what it is, how people could use it, where they can find you, all those things about it. 

Jermaine : Yeah, so that conversation with my mom had me build a app to help her document the things that she has.

Their bucket lists, her dreams. So initially I built an inventory app. I was thinking, let me build an AI to just have conversations with my mom and then record everything. 'cause I want it. 

Jill: Yeah. 

Jermaine : And once I realized that I had information about her assets and her relationships, then I actually can make a will for her.

And so what I set out to do is to make it the easiest way to make a will for someone. So the general idea is this, 70% of Americans have a will. Probably half of those 70% really needs one. And when I say need one, you have enough assets, you have enough things that you should start thinking about because there's people who are definitely too young.

There's also the other half that it's not exactly half [00:51:00] the other, one third that needs a trust because they have children, they have homes in two states, they have a mixed family. They have things that require a little bit more consideration. Where I struggle with now is like our app is able to make a will, a health directive, a financial power of attorney for people.

However, to make a trust, which I think a lot of people do need. It's a little too expensive. And so I set out to build this thing where you come in, you talk to our ai, we remember everything for you, and our only job is to ask you questions. Then draft that will, that reflects what you want. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Jermaine : So we can't give you advice of what to do legally.

And we, we cannot tell you what to do. We can show you all the best practices and have you choose based on your wishes. And I wanna offer this option to refer you to an attorney if our will is not sufficient. However, what I realize is we're charging 1 79 [00:52:00] to get this done, and there's no attorney out there that's charging anywhere close to that.

And so, so if you have any attorneys that are, you know, that wants to be referred, I, I'd be happy to keep your contact and just know that, you know, my users are just people who are putting off this conversation for whatever reason. And that reason could be they don't want to talk to a human because this is a very vulnerable conversation.

And there's so many reasons for that too, is that, you know, some of our users tell us that I don't want to go talk to a human because. I am insecure about how little I know despite how successful I am, at least perception wise, they didn't say it that way, but that's what I decoded. And so if I think back to my parents, they both have their MBAs, they're both business owners.

And we avoided this conversation until last year. And, and it's when I started this journey of, you know, we ended up hiring an attorney. We set up a trust for them and well, I'm so glad we did, [00:53:00] basically just right before my mom passed. But it also just made me realize that like, it's not a education level, it's not a resource level.

It's a very human thing to not wanna open the can of worms of a big conversation. And so what my app is doing is to have simple conversations, beautiful designs, and just to guide someone to talking about this. And the added benefit of using AI using a intelligent database is that I get to translate this onto Spanish.

Into Chinese, into Mandarin, into Vietnamese, into German, into all the languages that really, like all the household will just not talk about unless they have an app to talk to. And so we're not the final solution for estate planning, but I sure hope that we're the first step that most people will take.

And I'm totally fine if someone comes into our app, uses it and realize I should talk to a lawyer. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Jermaine : And the beautiful thing is we can export all your data as you told us, and the [00:54:00] lawyer will have a quicker time onboarding you. 

Jill: Hmm. 

Jermaine : And so that's the mission I'm on. You know, it's something that I'm building in honor of my mom.

I think her stories of her facial lady, of her hairdresser who don't speak a lot of English about their situation with their estate plan or their second marriage and things like that, I just told her, you know, I'm gonna build this so that they can use it to clarify the questions that they have. 

Jill: That makes a lot of sense because.

I don't know as much as I wish I did, and I can see why it could be hard for people, because I work in a space where I talk to people all the time about their end of life, has they thought about it? Do they have a will? Do they have trust? Do they have whatever they need? And I still don't fully understand them.

So I could imagine if you're starting from a place of not in this world at all, it could be overwhelming. And when I do end of life care plans with people, it's [00:55:00] not a legal document, right? It's not an advanced health directive even. But what it does is it helps people think through the things that they might need, why they might need it, why it's important to them, and then they could use that document to create legal documents with a lawyer if that's what they need.

And so your app sounds interesting in that place of, and actually I do legally have a will. My husband and I did those when we were younger. I just saw it yesterday in the safety deposit box. 'cause I had to get something else out and I thought, I don't know the last time I looked at this really like, is this even current?

Is this something that I should update? Probably should, if nothing else read through it and look at it. But So somebody used your app and then it was like, oh, I actually do need a lawyer. At least now they know to go to a lawyer versus ignoring the whole thing because they're not sure. They don't wanna spend all the money.

So that's really neat. And if somebody wanted to use your app, do they have to pay the 1 79 to use it at all? Or is there a way that they could start [00:56:00] off using it just to see if it's something that would work for them? Like how's that part of it work? 

Jermaine : Yeah, so depending on when this episode airs, we are only in California right now.

We're. The reason is because all 50 states have different laws. They all vary a little bit. And the legal bills for my startup is crazy as to we're gonna expend to probably 10 more states by the end of March. That's the target. Hello. So if somebody wants to check it out, it's at Airli H-E-I-R-L-I-G-H-T airline.com.

It is free to start. You only pay when you export. The only three documents we have now are Wills, advance healthcare directive, as well as durable power of attorney, which essentially is who do you give the right or the power to handle your finances and your legal documents when you're not able to.

Mm-hmm. So that's while you're alive. For you though, you should definitely update your will because you have kids. Yeah. And you know, when you have kids, you gotta think about guardianship and what happens, not [00:57:00] just when you pass, but when you cannot make decisions. And that doesn't mean if you're sick.

Let's say you go on a trip and you lost your phone and you can't be contacted for three days. In those three days, if your kids who are minors need something, who can access anything you have or who can make a health decision for you or for them. And so these are all questions that they're quite realistic.

It's internet blackout is possible and these are the things that I think, I'm hoping we have these conversations and that's why I'm out here talking about these things. I'm not an attorney, and so as you can imagine, sometimes I have conversations with attorneys and I have to explain myself a lot, and I'm not saying I have the answers to everything.

In fact, I'm happy to refer everyone on my app to an attorney. The question comes down to can they afford it? 

Jill: Yeah. 

Jermaine : And I know for a fact that at the price point of most attorneys, a lot of people will just not do it. [00:58:00] And so having a trust is likely better than having a will. Having a will is likely better than not having one, but there is a way to have a bad will.

And so my goal is to not let that happen. It's just to make sure that like your wishes are honored in that piece of paper in the most legal concise way possible that holds up. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Jermaine : And yeah, that's the journey that I'm on. I'm like definitely drowning in all these legal talk texts. And my mom wanted me to be a lawyer and I didn't like studying.

So here's the second closest thing to being a lawyer. 

Jill: Yeah, you're lawyer adjacent now. Yeah. And actually one time I did talk with a, a law office about end of life care planning. It was like an elder care attorney. And one of the people from the law office jokingly said, I don't care if you write it on a napkin, but you have to have something written down.

And they were like, not really a napkin, but really something is better than nothing. And so many people don't [00:59:00] understand that. They think only if I go to a lawyer and I get it done this way, is it gonna be worth anything? And it's like, no, it, it is gonna be helpful. For your loved ones. And I think that's where sometimes too people don't understand what a gift it is to give your family to have anything ready a will, these advanced health directives, you know, anything that will help guide them when we get into what is potentially going to be a reality for all of us, somebody we love is gonna die.

Right? And it's really something that whether you have a good relationship or a not good relationship, that's gonna be a stressful situation for you. So having something in place, even if it's just a will through your app, because they can't necessarily afford a lawyer and maybe they don't even really need to have the full thing, is gonna be so much better than having nothing where then your family members are scrambling trying to figure out.

[01:00:00] All of that stuff while they're also grieving you because they just lost their loved ones. So yeah, anything is better than nothing. So it's neat that you're doing this in an app form too, because I think that makes it accessible to people to just be able to sit down and kind of go through the steps and just get something done.

So that's beautiful. And you said you're gonna expand into 10 more states in March, which states, if you don't mind. 

Jermaine : Yeah, it should be the 10 most populous states. Mm-hmm. So Texas, Florida, New York, Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio, I believe. 

Jill: Okay. 

Jermaine : However, pending the state's laws, I will leave your audience with this though.

If you have a piece of paper and you write down, there's this concept called a gift of residue. Which is everything else in your life. So if you list out and say, I want my car to go to this person, my house to go to this person and everything else that I did not [01:01:00] mention to go to this person, you can actually cover.

That's essentially, that's a will. What makes it legal in most state, and it differs a little bit by state to state, is whether you get it notarized or if you don't want to get it notarized. You can get two witnesses who don't stand to benefit from your will, which means they just don't receive anything ideally to be witness of you signing it, and then you can just tell your family where you keep it.

I have to be clear though, if you have a will, you still have to go through probate, which is a court process, and that process costs money. It takes time. And this is why lawyers generally will not recommend a will. They would recommend a trust to avoid that process of probate, but if you understand these terms that I'm talking about, probate executor.

Process, then probably you should get a trust. So yeah, that's where I'm at. 

Jill: Yeah, and that's where like I still don't fully understand probate, but that's why I have these conversations with people that [01:02:00] know things that I don't know, and then that's why I'm sharing them with the world. I just got my yearly review through my podcasting platform and I literally do have listeners all around the world, which was really kind of cool.

And the most listeners are in Oregon, which I did not expect. So somebody in Oregon, whoever you are, thank you for listening. Really likes my podcast, which is super cool. So it is important to just understand these things and to not avoid the conversation, not avoid thinking about it, because we're all gonna have to at some point, but also baby steps.

It doesn't mean you have to jump in tomorrow and do all of these things. It's like just take one step at a time and then find the people that can help you along the way, because it is a lot, but it is also important. 

Jermaine : I'm really glad I found you and I think you're on a similar mission. We're approaching it in a very different way, but mm-hmm.

I think our end goal sounds like it's the same. More clarity. 

Jill: Yeah, 

Jermaine : [01:03:00] clarity is love in a practical form. 

Jill: Yeah, I like that. And my business name. Yes. So it's in my business name, end of life clarity is because I want people to just see clearly and understand end of life. So that was beautiful and it's a perfect place for us to end.

And I am sorry we ran over, but this was such a great conversation. Again, I never know where I'm gonna go with the conversations and I love all the different things that we kind of got into and we wove together to tell, you know, this beautiful story. So thank you so much for coming on today. 

Jermaine : Thank you.

Jill: If you've been listening to my podcast for a while and you hear me and my guests talk over and over about how important it is to create a plan for the end of life and to have the conversations with your loved ones about what's important to you, and you're thinking, okay, maybe it's time. Maybe I should actually sit down and figure this out instead of just hoping it all works out later, I get it.

These conversations can feel overwhelming or scary or just like something you'll deal with another day, but you don't have to do it alone. If you [01:04:00] wanna help creating an end of life care plan for yourself or for someone you love, maybe it's your aging parents, a spouse, whoever it is in your life, you can book a complimentary 30 minute call with me and we'll just talk.

We'll get clear on what's going on for you and what the next right steps might be. There's no pressure. Just support the links in the show notes whenever you're ready. And if this episode made you think of someone, a sibling, a friend, or another caregiver, feel free to share it with them. Sometimes these conversations are easier to start when someone else opens the door.

First, thank you for being here. The fact that you're even willing to listen to this kind of conversation means a lot.