SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you some of you for being back.
SPEAKER_00: If you're here for the first time, thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_00: And that's actually where I want to start.
SPEAKER_00: Did anybody not receive the handout last week?
SPEAKER_00: For some reason the copier decided not to heed my instructions and put a staple in this.
SPEAKER_00: However, that's just fine.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it will be easier to leaf through.
SPEAKER_00: And you definitely want two of these if you're a couple.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you've got some way of making that happen concurrently, I don't know about.
SPEAKER_00: Even still, I think you want two.
SPEAKER_09: Wouldn't tell you anyway.
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: So we're a reminder, or uh, or for the first time you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Say that again.
SPEAKER_00: This is the one on the website.
SPEAKER_00: That's the one on the website.
SPEAKER_00: You can print more copies, or I've got them here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh always happy to share these with you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the goal reminder is honestly, if you plan to have a service here, give it to me and I'll put it in the file.
SPEAKER_00: And then give another copy to who you think will be the executor of your wishes.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean you really can't distribute enough copies of this to make sure that people know you've got plans and what they are.
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, um, when people decide, and I just say it from our spot, if people decide to be in our columbarium and they've purchased a niche, you want to make sure your family knows that so that they're not like, well, we don't know what mom and dad wanted, we just bought a plot.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you you you just you want people to know what you've done so that it's accessible, and then they sort of know, oh, here's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: I think I mentioned this to you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm the executor of my parents' will.
SPEAKER_00: I'm also the executor of my brother's will, even though I won't be doing anything with his assets.
SPEAKER_00: I I get to make sure they get followed.
SPEAKER_00: What a delightful responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Um, both of them have very, very strong wishes.
SPEAKER_00: So my parents want a particular burial and have a plot.
SPEAKER_00: My brother's Orthodox Jewish, and so that will be really something because he's got really strong funeral demands, they're not even wishes, about where and how all of that's done.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so I I am on hand.
SPEAKER_00: I've got the plan, and as I told you, I've got 24 hours to get him buried in the event something happens.
SPEAKER_00: So I keep that in my firebox, I keep my own in my firebox, and when I update it, it'll be in the file here, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: So you can't you really can't overdo it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I wanted to pick up and see if any of you during the week had thoughts or questions from what we didn't cover last week.
SPEAKER_00: It's always really great for the rest of the group.
SPEAKER_00: There's really not a bad question, even if you feel like we've covered it already.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's really helpful to get our heads around it.
SPEAKER_00: So uh to start out, were there any questions or follow-ups from last week?
SPEAKER_08: You did a good job.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in some ways, it's possible that you're thinking, what else is there to cover given what we did last week?
SPEAKER_00: And and again, I hope to make this a workshop for you.
SPEAKER_00: So again, we've talked about distributing this information, but there's a few other things that go into this beyond the service itself and where you'd like your remains or cremains to ultimately rest.
SPEAKER_00: So last week we were able to end with me telling you that it's really critical, and this guide includes a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, this is not like an estate planning document, but it is really helpful for you to think about, in addition to your service, your estate planning that results, you know, that ultimately has something to do with the tale of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And I told you specifically that um Texas is a great state in that if you have an advanced medical directive and you get it charted, the hospital has to follow it.
SPEAKER_00: And so does your next of kin.
SPEAKER_00: In the state of Georgia, a long time ago, I I don't stay whether they've done it, you could fill out a medical directive, and as soon as you became incapacitated, your next of kin could do whatever they wanted with you.
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't want that to happen because I've got really strong opinions about my medical care.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want my spouse to have to wonder whether she made the right decision or not.
SPEAKER_00: I want her to make my decision, not her own.
SPEAKER_00: I I hope that makes sense what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes we say, I don't want to be on a machine.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean anything.
SPEAKER_00: Because when they put an IV in your arm, that's a machine.
SPEAKER_00: They will do that when you have a colonoscopy.
SPEAKER_00: You will be on a machine.
SPEAKER_00: And you do want that machine.
SPEAKER_00: You you you want anesthesia.
SPEAKER_00: That's a machine.
SPEAKER_00: You want that.
SPEAKER_00: So you you want to say, well, I just don't want to be on life support.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's not helpful.
SPEAKER_00: You you want to put down as if you've got specific thoughts, you need to make them specific.
SPEAKER_00: This is not to be morbid, it's just so people don't have to guess what mama would have wanted.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've had to do this for your own parents or somebody else, but one of the most excruciating things about having to make a call is well, I think mom would have wanted this, but I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00: And you live in this limbo not just immediately, but you can live in that limbo for years about whether you honored your mother's wishes.
SPEAKER_00: So again, I told you in my own long-term life support has to have an 80% chance of getting a recovery, or I'm not to be attached to it.
SPEAKER_00: Now you might be thinking, Mike, that's a really slim margin.
SPEAKER_00: It is, and that's what I want.
SPEAKER_00: And that's in my advanced medical directive, that language.
SPEAKER_00: Now, does any doctor know 80% no?
SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you, having been in a hospital, uh, and this is important to your planning, in general, what physicians want to do is keep you alive.
SPEAKER_00: That's their training.
SPEAKER_00: Um physicians are not in general predisposed to think about quality of life or your wishes or your definitions of quality.
SPEAKER_00: What they'd like to do is keep the blip going on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a chaplain, one of the things that was really important for my work was to make sure if somebody did not want to be resuscitated to A, get it in the chart, because if it's not in the chart, they're not going to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Does this make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: And to have a bracelet on your wrist that says DNR, but sometimes there's a code and the crash team comes in, and we as chaplains had to say, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Because the knee-jerk response for many hospitals is get the blip going again.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this is okay.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm now you may say, Mike, you didn't like that, and I hope it isn't.
SPEAKER_00: I just have seen it like that.
SPEAKER_08: Mike, what if you have a bracelet that says DNR?
SPEAKER_08: You go to the hospital, they're gonna take it off.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they might, but then you say, I think, if you're conscious, you say, Listen, I want the hospital equivalent of this.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's not always a fail-safe, and this is one of those things you learn, whether it's your child in school or you're in a hospital, you need someone to advocate for you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it should be this way, but if you've had a loved one in the hospital in care, uh my experience is you've got to be their advocate.
SPEAKER_00: As a priest, I've gone into people who have said, like, I'm in pain.
SPEAKER_00: And I've gone to the nursing station and said, This is not acceptable.
SPEAKER_00: You need to get in there right now, in the collar.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they don't listen to me, but you've got to try.
SPEAKER_00: I I hope it makes sense what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: That's where this becomes really, really important.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell you a few things I think that matter when you think about your loved ones.
SPEAKER_00: This may not have as much to do with you.
SPEAKER_00: In my experience, um, people have a little bit of control as to when they die.
SPEAKER_00: A little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Like I've seen people who should have been dead because they swallowed their breakfast in their lungs, and I gave them the last rites, and they died when I left the room.
SPEAKER_00: Uh coincidence, maybe that one story, but I've seen story after story where people wait to do something to die.
SPEAKER_00: My mother, for example, her dad had cancer of the liver.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, you know that gets everywhere, right?
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just in the liver, it was everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And she was in bed with him, and her own sense is that uh he wanted her there, but he didn't want to die in front of her.
SPEAKER_00: So he waited until she fell asleep, and then he died.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that he didn't want her in the bed, he didn't want to die in front of his daughter.
SPEAKER_00: Couple parishioners here.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen it where when the grandson walks in the room from Seattle, person dies right then.
SPEAKER_00: They were waiting for their grandson or granddaughter.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen people, they want their kids here, and then when their kids go out to take, go to church or to have a meal, they die when the kids are gone because they want them, but they don't want to die in front of them.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: We can have a disagreement of opinion on that, but it's it's it's sort of helpful to just to think through.
SPEAKER_00: And you're thinking through uh what you'd like uh in terms of medical directives, is a step of doing that, which is giving yourself permission to die when it's time.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've ever been involved with hospice, one of the ministries of hospice is that you give each other permission for the dying person to die.
SPEAKER_00: Has anybody done this with hospice before?
SPEAKER_00: It should be intentionally phrased like that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm giving you permission to die.
SPEAKER_00: That may sound funny, but I've seen 54-year-old people beg their dad to stay there because they need them, and dad stays.
SPEAKER_00: It's clear it's painful.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and this is part of the dying process.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this side of it, how do you prep for it?
SPEAKER_00: I just I don't know the answer to that, except that plant in your head that happens.
SPEAKER_00: And and this thinking is really uh an opportunity for you not to have to hold on to manage this later because you can manage it now.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, ma'am.
SPEAKER_05: Yes, I'm gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Me as a priest, I say I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I w saying it gently, I think you've got an opportunity to wish you were dead or to be alive right now.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is, most people are not afraid of death.
SPEAKER_00: This is maybe surprising to you.
SPEAKER_00: Most people aren't afraid of death.
SPEAKER_00: Most people are afraid of dying, not death.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the fear of dying can sure get in the way of us living.
SPEAKER_00: So gently, I would say, what could you live for today?
SPEAKER_00: Given that your life does not seem to be in your control.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I've had a parishioner once upon a time who uh told me that she was dying for about three years every day, and she wanted to die.
SPEAKER_00: And uh there came one day where I said, You are not ready to die, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Damn, you're right.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that was a lovely moment.
SPEAKER_00: Now I wouldn't have said it the first time, but I'd gotten to know this person, and um, when it did come time, I think she was ready, but I'll tell you, similar, she was waiting for a grandchild to be born.
SPEAKER_00: And when the grandchild was born, she wasn't ready because she wanted to have time with the baby.
SPEAKER_00: But she was holding on.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I think the question is, okay, okay, I hear that you're ready, but while you're waiting, what could what could you live for today?
SPEAKER_00: Gently.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like being a chaplain in a hospital.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say this.
SPEAKER_00: Because I had to visit patients who did not request a visit.
SPEAKER_00: And that is like my least favorite thing in life to do is to try to talk to somebody who doesn't ask to be talked to.
SPEAKER_00: Valuable things happen, but I love being your priest because even if you don't want me, I'm sort of your priest, and I can show up and there's at least a reason to be there.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know if that little bit was just helpful that we did.
SPEAKER_00: But I hope it expands your your your thinking because you can't put this in the document, but it is helpful to be aware of what is it you think you need to live for.
SPEAKER_00: Do you need to live for those things?
SPEAKER_00: This is important in the dying process.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to plant a store another story.
SPEAKER_00: This has to do with uh fundamentally uh the way I've been sort of pushed to pray.
SPEAKER_00: I I've mentioned it.
SPEAKER_00: I had a lady in uh Coronado who was a beautiful person.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she arguably was one of those people who could really see the beauty in every person, regardless of how hard they made that.
SPEAKER_00: And her children, she'd raised them in church and they just weren't interested in raising their own children that way, so she was the link to her grandkids in church, and her faith meant a great deal.
SPEAKER_00: And she was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'll tell you, my funeral plan says stage four, I'm not treating it.
SPEAKER_00: You make your own choice.
SPEAKER_00: Um, debatable.
SPEAKER_00: Stage four ovarian cancer, if you know anything, is like stage four prostate cancer uh no uh pancreatic cancer.
SPEAKER_00: The name in the institution is it's the kiss of death.
SPEAKER_00: And I was praying for this lady one day, and I'll just tell you, I was praying God help her to figure out to just accept this and die peacefully.
SPEAKER_00: And I had this strange thing happen to me that rarely happens.
SPEAKER_00: This little voice from one side said, Why do you get to pick how she lives and how she dies?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't acknowledge where that came from, but I went ahead and had a dialogue with that voice in my head.
SPEAKER_00: Because I've seen people die from the chemo, not the cancer, because the death of the chemo is way worse than the cancer, because you can't escape this and that.
SPEAKER_00: And again, this little voice came back and said, But why do you get to pick why she dies?
SPEAKER_00: And how and when.
SPEAKER_00: I decided that was the voice of God, and uh, what was happening in prayer was not me trying to get God to bring about my will, but for me to actually think, to think in God's presence about how to be present with another human being.
SPEAKER_00: So my prayer ultimately had to change to God.
SPEAKER_00: Help her to know where to put her energy and to have peace in putting her energy in either dying or fighting.
SPEAKER_00: But help her to have peace wherever she puts herself and to have some discernment.
SPEAKER_00: Now that may sound like a weak prayer, but it was all I could pray with integrity.
SPEAKER_00: Now that woman fought that cancer, and um boy, it was hard, and she got another year and a half of reasonably good quality life.
SPEAKER_00: And it came back and she died.
SPEAKER_00: But thinking through uh what kind of death and what she wanted to live for, and whether or not um that was achievable, uh those are all important parts when it's time for you, when you're presented with an opportunity to die or not.
SPEAKER_00: I just I want to put that out to you.
SPEAKER_00: You won't find that in the plan.
SPEAKER_00: Why I choose to hang on to life against all odds.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it's helpful to think about.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that might be really weird, and you're welcome to say, Mike, that's the dumbest thing you've ever heard, and uh you've ever said, and here's why I think you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a lecture, it's really meant to be a workshop.
SPEAKER_00: So, what things are on here uh and and and and other thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: Um along the way, I've learned a couple of weird things.
SPEAKER_00: There was a lady who um updated her funeral plan every day for three years.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, some of you know Nancy Weiss.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I'll tell you when we got there, it I mean, it was exactly what she said.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the things she did that was brilliant that I thought on the outside would never work, is she wanted a reception at her funeral, but it was to be before the service.
SPEAKER_00: So we told people the funeral's at 10.
SPEAKER_00: And people came at 10 into the reception, and at 11 o'clock we started the service.
SPEAKER_00: This might seem really backward, but the interesting thing was for her family, they only had to visit for an hour.
SPEAKER_00: They did not have to be here for three hours waiting for people to leave.
SPEAKER_00: So people mingled and they told stories, nice to see you.
SPEAKER_00: They were all here, and then they went and had this formal service and they said goodbye together.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not telling you pick your reception before your funeral, but I'm going to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't want my wife waiting for people to leave.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people that know me that don't know her, and I don't want her to have to take care of them.
SPEAKER_00: We do that differently according to who we know.
SPEAKER_00: But this is an interesting thing to think about.
SPEAKER_00: There's only the rules you make.
SPEAKER_00: There's not the rules of the church or the priest or what your parents or grandparents did.
SPEAKER_00: You really have an opportunity to say, this is what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you say, I don't want a service, please trust me and make a plan for a service.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't want it.
SPEAKER_00: Reminder, it isn't for you.
SPEAKER_00: The service is for everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: Do people need a service?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if people will come.
SPEAKER_00: Let them choose.
SPEAKER_00: You make a service.
SPEAKER_00: Really important.
SPEAKER_00: You may feel like, uh, well, you don't want to bother, you want to weigh people down.
SPEAKER_00: Please let them choose that.
SPEAKER_00: And again, pretend you're going to have a service, and then the plan you want the one you want.
SPEAKER_00: And think about your folk.
SPEAKER_00: Like I say, um, I would do something different for my parents than I would for my wife, but I want to give an opportunity for my wife, but I also want to honor her and think about what she'd like.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: If you're not sure what your adult children want, ask them.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I'm planning my service now so that you'll know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: This is not to be morbid, it's just to be honest.
SPEAKER_00: Here's part of what I want.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about that.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about what you might need.
SPEAKER_08: What if what if you want to be cremated, but your your children object to that?
SPEAKER_08: They don't want to.
SPEAKER_00: If my children were not going to do my wishes, then in my will I would say the executor of my body is somebody who will cremate me.
SPEAKER_00: That may hurt your kids' feelings, but that's the only way to achieve what you would like.
SPEAKER_00: Because you won't be able to contest them burying you after your death.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: An advanced medical directive is one thing about hospitals, but making sure you're cremated is much murkier legally.
SPEAKER_00: Because you who will be advocating for you?
SPEAKER_00: Your next of kin will be making the choice.
SPEAKER_00: And if they don't choose what you say, who's going to oppose them?
SPEAKER_08: My mother did not want to be cremated.
SPEAKER_08: She wanted the casket and that whole thing.
SPEAKER_08: And so my dad did that.
SPEAKER_08: And then he cremated.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen people do that.
SPEAKER_00: My own mother does not want to be cremated and I won't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Personally, I don't know what I think about caskets, but that's what my mom wants.
SPEAKER_00: Now I told my mom.
SPEAKER_00: She said she wants an open microphone at her funeral.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I won't do that.
SPEAKER_00: So if that's really important, you're going to need to change your will because I'm not going to follow your will on that.
SPEAKER_00: Mainly because I don't think it's helpful for her.
SPEAKER_00: I know my mother.
SPEAKER_00: I also know services, and I told you this.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want an open microphone at a funeral because it gets in the way of what the funeral is trying to do.
SPEAKER_00: An open microphone at a reception is different from a funeral.
SPEAKER_00: But open microphones are strange because they're almost always manipulative.
SPEAKER_00: Almost always.
SPEAKER_00: And people feel like they have to share something and they're really not in a place to share.
SPEAKER_00: And I would suggest to you they're not really helpful.
SPEAKER_00: I don't allow more than three eulogies at a funeral, and usually I suggest one or two.
SPEAKER_00: And they're not open, they've been planned.
SPEAKER_00: Because when people get up and just talk, they lose focus about what they're supposed to be saying.
SPEAKER_00: My mom wants the grandkids to be able to share.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's eight of those.
SPEAKER_00: So again, this is why we've had this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: If you want that, pick a different executor, because I'm not doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's bad of me.
SPEAKER_00: Every family is different.
SPEAKER_00: It's not right or wrong, it's just your family.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why this matters, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Again, you're welcome to say that's crazy, or how about this other question?
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's really helpful to think through these decisions with the people who are going to be making them.
SPEAKER_00: This is going to sound strange, but you know, there's lots of people who I'm involved with deeply, who um, you know, I meet their kids who have been married in the Jewish faith or the Lutheran faith, or they just church isn't their thing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't judge that at all.
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
SPEAKER_00: We get to this point where we say, Would you like to have donations of flowers?
SPEAKER_00: And I would tell you, almost everybody says, No, I'd rather not have all those flowers.
SPEAKER_00: People will send them.
SPEAKER_00: So we usually put in our bulletin, in lieu of donation uh flowers, donations may be made to blank.
SPEAKER_00: And I've had people say, Yeah, you know, dad really liked the arm and bayou, and um, you know, uh, I think it's important that people can read Braille.
SPEAKER_00: So, how about the Arm and Bayou and the Society for the Blind?
SPEAKER_00: Those are great causes, right?
SPEAKER_00: They are, they're great.
SPEAKER_00: And then only because I was taught to do this from somebody I trust, I usually say, you know, I sense that because your father was on the vestry of this church five times in the leadership of such and such ministry for 25 years, I I sense the church was very important to your father.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not telling you you have to honor that, but I want to raise that to you as something your father spent his life on.
SPEAKER_00: Um I didn't do that to be extortion.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't do it for that reason.
SPEAKER_00: I do it to represent the person who's died and the person whose life we're celebrating.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about money, it's about representing values.
SPEAKER_00: So on my funeral plan, it says, in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to one, two, three, so that my kids don't have to try to figure what my values are.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about the money, it's about representing me.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: Now I don't have a will.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a I'm not an attorney.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but I'll tell you why I don't have a will.
SPEAKER_00: In California, if you owned land worth more than$25,000, which meant if you owned a postage stamp, uh, when you died, your property was going to probate court.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of whether you had a will or not, it was going to probate.
SPEAKER_00: The average probate court cost was$32,000.
SPEAKER_00: That's in California.
SPEAKER_00: My wife went to law school and she took a trust class.
SPEAKER_00: She's not a trust attorney.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what she does.
SPEAKER_00: And she didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't know that either until I learned it in church, of all places.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what did we do?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we thought uh our$500,000 mortgage is really not a treat to pass on to our heirs, particularly if they have to pay$32,000 to assume it.
SPEAKER_00: So we paid uh about$1,500 to make a trust, which meant the home and the mortgage bound up in it would never go to probate.
SPEAKER_00: In Texas, I think it's a watch.
SPEAKER_00: I think the probate court cost is about the same as making a trust.
SPEAKER_00: The difference being an asset in probate goes to court before it's awarded, and an asset in a trust passes on to the uh custodian of the trust without going to probate.
SPEAKER_00: I I hope I act I accurately represented that.
SPEAKER_07: You did.
SPEAKER_07: I have a trust, and that's exactly why I did it.
SPEAKER_00: This is also true about checking accounts.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not putting my daughter on my checking account.
SPEAKER_00: She's six.
SPEAKER_00: However, to pay for my funeral, which will cost money, I don't really want my mother to have to pay her money for my funeral and wait to assume my checking account 30 to 90 days later to reimburse herself.
SPEAKER_00: So I can add her to my checking account now.
SPEAKER_00: This is only with people you trust, and then I can pay for my own funeral.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: My wife does not have to wait because her name's on the account.
SPEAKER_00: There are weird things, uh, and this is helpful to know, and I'm not an expert, so you want to talk to your expert, but this is part of this.
SPEAKER_00: What you do now.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if my wife and I's name is on a car, title, we co-own the car.
SPEAKER_00: I will have to clear the title after her death because she won't be around anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Texas is a common property state, which means if her name's not on the title, she co-owns the car anyway.
SPEAKER_00: So if she dies, I still have to clear the title, even though her name's not on the title.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense what I'm telling you?
SPEAKER_00: Same with the home.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're definitely both on the home and we have a mortgage, so we're definitely on that, right?
SPEAKER_00: But this is part of what you'll be doing the first 30, 60, 90 days of being an executor to a will or surviving a spouse or parent, or things like clearing titles, waiting for probate.
SPEAKER_00: Um wills aren't free, you know this, right?
SPEAKER_00: Wills usually cost, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00: About$500 to make a will?
SPEAKER_00: Are they more than that?
SPEAKER_09: $750.
SPEAKER_00: $750.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: A revocable trust is um$1,500,$1,700.
SPEAKER_00: You still have to clear titles.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but again, assets can pass directly, and you do want to think about things like when to put your kiddo on your checking account or your savings account.
SPEAKER_00: By now, all of you know, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a pension or you've got a 401k, you need a beneficiary other than yourself, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you you want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to have 10, but you need one or two.
SPEAKER_00: I've got children.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I've only got one minor child left.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I've got plan A and plan B for guardians.
SPEAKER_00: Because plan A is 72.
SPEAKER_00: So I've got it I've got a plan B.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Uh some people go all the way through plan F.
SPEAKER_00: You need to be comfortable, but I don't think you should be neurotic.
SPEAKER_00: Whether that's an asset or custodianship.
SPEAKER_00: Are these on here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, they sort of are, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's sort of things here like uh important documents and advisors, helpful to have that on your plan, not only in your firebox and in your successor and your heir, but I think it's helpful to have in the church because we're just another link in the chain of being an information giver and sharer.
SPEAKER_00: I I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_08: Mike, could we visit revisit the DNR about a minute?
SPEAKER_08: Um you have one in your firebox and you've given one to your child or whatever, uh a good friend.
SPEAKER_08: Should you give one to the local churches?
SPEAKER_08: I mean, not churches.
SPEAKER_08: Hospitals.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know if hospitals will keep that outside of your being there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the truth is if you really want to dot your eyes, you you you need your your person if you're going for.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, listen, very rarely do we say, I've had a heart attack, I'm gonna go home and get my advanced medical care directive and take that to the hospital with me and make sure they chart that.
SPEAKER_00: But it would not hurt you to say to your adult friend, listen, in this envelope is my advanced medical directive, and if I go to the hospital in an emergency, would you please bring it?
SPEAKER_00: I know this sounds crazy because we don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean it's crazy, it just means we don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: If we did it, again, it's it's T-crossing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you should have your advanced medical directive in your purse at all times or folded up in your wallet.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the little much.
SPEAKER_00: But you don't know which hospital an ambulance will take you to.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hit pause for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you can ask to go either to Methodist or downtown.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
SPEAKER_00: I told my wife that.
SPEAKER_07: I was told by the trust attorney with the recorder off that.
SPEAKER_00: Not a bad idea.
SPEAKER_00: We don't we don't do it because it sounds morbid, but listen, dying is part of living.
SPEAKER_00: Most people aren't afraid of death, most people are anxious about dying.
SPEAKER_00: How can we manage, mitigate our own anxiety about dying, which we're going to do?
SPEAKER_00: Is that okay what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_07: Also, what are the odds that the person who's got your advanced directive is going to be there when something happens to you?
SPEAKER_00: What are the odds?
SPEAKER_00: My brother lives in Charlotte.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if I were to book an immediate flight, immediate, that's if I got on there today, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's going to take me probably seven hours.
SPEAKER_00: That's if I could just get on, right?
SPEAKER_00: So what I have to be able to do remotely is engage a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: My parents live in Kentucky, and listen, there's not even a major airport.
SPEAKER_00: I can't fly direct to Lexington from Houston at all.
SPEAKER_00: I could fly to Louisville maybe once a day.
SPEAKER_00: So it depends when I need to get on the flight, right?
SPEAKER_00: So again, we've got to be able to coordinate from afar.
SPEAKER_00: And it's important.
SPEAKER_00: If my mom's coordinating for me, she knows.
SPEAKER_00: Because otherwise she won't know that.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen, if you love that place, ignore what I said.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got an opinion, though, keep it and make sure your loved ones know you've got an opinion.
SPEAKER_00: I've got a really strong opinion about that one.
SPEAKER_00: Really strong.
SPEAKER_00: Or I wouldn't be mentioning it to you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not advising you what to do about that place.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm just saying my wife knows, not there.
SPEAKER_00: The heart tower is okay.
SPEAKER_00: In case you're wondering.
SPEAKER_00: It's just across the street, I worry.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's changing because you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Totally changed ownership.
SPEAKER_00: This happens.
SPEAKER_04: And it was the worst experience I've had.
SPEAKER_04: But even at the five days, and I'm still being able to barely can walk after surgery.
SPEAKER_04: Uh I was still going to the desk where the nurses were saying, this has got to change.
SPEAKER_04: The situation with the room I had is not working.
SPEAKER_04: And your care is crazy.
SPEAKER_04: So I'm gonna sit here at the nursing station until you make some changes.
SPEAKER_04: And so that was about the only thing I could do to get control of it.
SPEAKER_04: But most people won't do that because you know they're walking around with uh holding on a pole with uh IV.
SPEAKER_04: It was really, really bad.
SPEAKER_04: But I would say that I had to search there twice, and both times we did the prep table to make sure that they didn't talk to about that other advanced directors.
SPEAKER_04: We cleared all that.
SPEAKER_04: But they knew already how much I felt in case something went wrong, and so it was all right.
SPEAKER_04: So that part was to me was okay.
SPEAKER_04: It was just the medical theory.
SPEAKER_04: And this, I think so now the same.
SPEAKER_04: I feel like you I will never I never go there again.
SPEAKER_00: You you've named something really important, not to jump in, but um please don't make your children wait to read your paperwork to know what you want.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's like not a happy thing, but just see, listen, sweetie.
SPEAKER_00: I I need an hour of your time.
SPEAKER_00: You only have to hear this one time unless I change it, but I want you to know this is what I want because I don't want you to have to decide for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: So you may not agree, but please do what I'm saying and blame me for it.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: It is a really great gift because I see a lot of times people saying, Well, I think mom wanted this, but I don't know, or I know dad didn't want this, but maybe the spirit of he wanted was this.
SPEAKER_00: It's just really nice when your kids can say, I really disagreed with my mom, but she told me to do this.
SPEAKER_00: So I did it.
SPEAKER_08: Uh I was at a hospital having had uh hip replacement, and uh I was in pain.
SPEAKER_08: I pushed a little button numerous times and nothing happened.
SPEAKER_08: Um I I yelled, I called, and the nurses station was outside my door and nobody came.
SPEAKER_08: So I got my phone, I went to Google and found the phone number for the hospital.
SPEAKER_08: I called the phone number, asked for the floor, the nurses station, and I said, I'm in room such and such, I'm in pain, and I need you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a good thing to have in your mind, maybe not in your plan.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter which hospital you go to.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to clear this up for you.
SPEAKER_00: You can go to the best hospital on the planet.
SPEAKER_00: Advocacy is important.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you're at St.
SPEAKER_00: Luke's or MD Anderson, it doesn't matter if you're a Methodist.
SPEAKER_00: You got to have an advocate in the hospital.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean somebody to nag people, but quite honestly, when it's you up in the bed, you got other things to think about.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to think about this.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we do this now.
SPEAKER_00: And it's really helpful to think about hey, who would I ask?
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean to stay with me all the time, but outside of my spouse, who would I ask to sort of be my advocate?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, the doctor's coming at 10.
SPEAKER_00: Could you come to make sure I don't miss something?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can write it in here.
SPEAKER_00: You can write anything you want in here.
SPEAKER_00: The goal is just to, you know, again, to mitigate the anxiety that comes around the dying process, which will happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: And is natural and not bad.
SPEAKER_00: What else can I share?
SPEAKER_00: That would be helpful.
SPEAKER_07: I found one thing.
SPEAKER_07: I've had two friends that I worked with that talk to me, but not their family.
SPEAKER_07: I'm not sure why in either case.
SPEAKER_07: They just didn't want to make their wife or husband have to think about things they didn't want to think about, which is I think it's silly, but that's how they work.
SPEAKER_07: And so they told me what they wanted.
SPEAKER_07: And what one wanted was to have he was a musician, he wanted to jam at his house, and then he wanted to go to sleep and that have that be it.
SPEAKER_07: And so I said, choose that then, just do it.
SPEAKER_07: Tell your wife.
SPEAKER_07: So he told his wife he wanted to jam.
SPEAKER_07: And they had that Saturday night.
SPEAKER_07: She woke up and gave him pain at it at two in the morning, and as soon as she went to sleep, he went on.
SPEAKER_07: He died.
SPEAKER_07: And another friend did the same thing.
SPEAKER_07: She said, I want I want to just go to sleep today and go on.
SPEAKER_07: And so I said, Well, how did you choose that then?
SPEAKER_07: I mean, it's kind of what you were saying.
SPEAKER_00: It's the permission to die.
SPEAKER_00: It's the whole permission to die.
SPEAKER_07: That's what it was.
SPEAKER_07: And they both apparently just needed, I'm not anyone to give my friends permission to go, but they everyone was hanging on to it so tightly.
SPEAKER_07: I think it's hard.
SPEAKER_07: So it's what do you want right now?
SPEAKER_07: If they're awake, you can say.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I really wanted to be with so and so when they died.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine, but they may not have wanted that.
SPEAKER_00: And they got the pick, not you.
SPEAKER_00: I just so I'm glad to hear that's helpful because I I want to make sure I repeat it then, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: I really believe people have some control.
SPEAKER_00: Some.
SPEAKER_00: Even if they get hit with a car, I think people have some control.
SPEAKER_01: So Mike, uh Jenny hosted one of the workshops here with Barbara Carnes.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And so I and ran the video, and and I didn't make that, but Mike loaned me the CD and I watched it.
SPEAKER_01: And Barbara Carnes was wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: So she's uh on our end, right, in San Francisco, but has made her her occupation and her career about helping families.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the main points she makes is that nobody should ever die in pain.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Not in this day and age.
SPEAKER_01: No one should die in pain.
SPEAKER_01: And I I thought it was if you haven't seen that, it's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01: Mike Mike's not the EC.
SPEAKER_01: Who was here for when Jenny did that?
SPEAKER_01: Was anybody here for that?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You agree?
SPEAKER_01: Am I staying?
SPEAKER_01: Am I missing anything?
SPEAKER_02: But if you have a terminal illness and say the hospice has been coming in, they can tell very accurately where that line is and will give your loved one just enough to keep them out of pain, but not knock them out or push them up.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think it is helpful to hear from those people who have a terminal diagnosis that you can self-select your morphine with a pump, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've been around folks that do this.
SPEAKER_00: And in general, when I visit with them, they choose.
SPEAKER_00: They choose to be more present and in more pain, or to not be.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: And I do think it's a I think it's a little bit of a choice.
SPEAKER_00: And and I think it almost there's shades of gray, but that's part of the picking, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh and it's nice when they can pick.
SPEAKER_00: They can't always.
SPEAKER_00: They can't always pick.
SPEAKER_00: I do want to say something up front, too, that's maybe neither here nor there.
SPEAKER_00: We, again, for repeat, most people are not afraid of death.
SPEAKER_00: They're anxious about dying, and that includes most of us.
SPEAKER_00: Which means when we're somebody in around someone in the dying process, we often make decisions from our anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: So we often say, look, he's shaking, he's in pain, and that may not be the case at all.
SPEAKER_00: But we say that because we're uncomfortable with the shake.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: You think about what 90% of people say after a death, well, he's not in pain anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Have you heard that phrase?
SPEAKER_00: Or he didn't suffer much.
SPEAKER_00: That reveals what we're afraid of.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't know how it felt for the person in the bed.
SPEAKER_00: My sister-in-law had a pain level two having her fifth baby on the couch.
SPEAKER_00: My wife said, epidural, please.
SPEAKER_00: Pain's very relative.
SPEAKER_00: It's very relative.
SPEAKER_00: There's some kind of pain.
SPEAKER_00: It actually doesn't hurt me at all.
SPEAKER_00: It drives other people up the wall.
SPEAKER_00: I can't stand to be punctured with a needle.
SPEAKER_00: Cannot stand it.
SPEAKER_00: I can't look.
SPEAKER_00: I can look at other people with needles in them, but listen, if I visit you in the hospital and they come in to give you an IV, I won't be looking at the IV until it's inserted.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to know that about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's not about them, that's about you.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: And it's helpful before you see your spouse or your mother, before you walk in that room to take a deep breath and say, I'm gonna go in there and tubes and all, I'm going to be with my spouse or my mother.
SPEAKER_00: This is the training of being a hospital chaplain, is we're around it enough that hopefully we figure out it's not about us.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that makes sense what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I never want this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but but that's the case.
SPEAKER_00: So given you didn't want that, how can you be with the person in the room?
SPEAKER_00: If you know you can't, then give yourself permission not to look at their IV, but to look at their face before you go in the room.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: This is not about your funeral plan, but it's about being with the dying.
SPEAKER_00: Don't focus on the wrong thing, which is really your own mortality.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know this, you are going to die one day.
SPEAKER_00: And while you have some control over the when, you don't have much control over the how.
SPEAKER_00: So mitigating as much as you can becomes really, really important.
SPEAKER_00: And I hope I don't sound cavalier.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00: Any other questions or thoughts?
SPEAKER_03: My parents just talked about dying, and they have a dance directly, so they have to do it.
SPEAKER_03: My sister was in I was down in Texas, and she had a surgery called just a blessing for us because you want it.
SPEAKER_03: She and my father had talked about that with us.
SPEAKER_00: These are just random.
SPEAKER_00: But one, as I told you, I have a trust, and my trust has rules for how my assets are going to be spent, and my custodian or my guarantor makes sure they get enforced.
SPEAKER_00: So I've got an 18-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want him to receive$100,000 to just spend.
SPEAKER_00: Not until he's 35.
SPEAKER_00: My trust says that.
SPEAKER_00: It says here are approvable expenses until this age.
SPEAKER_00: You you you can can you do that?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can.
SPEAKER_00: And if you care about things like that, I would tell you you should do that.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I also think if you choose to, I mean, again, we make choices about what we value.
SPEAKER_00: If you think, hey, I really just want to make sure there's enough to cover me and give my kids a little bit, but I really want to support organization Q, put it in your will of your trust.
SPEAKER_00: First$200,000 left goes to blank.
SPEAKER_00: Anything else goes to this thing that I care about.
SPEAKER_00: You absolutely can phrase it just like that so that your care goes in, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, interesting thing for me, I won't be in this position, by the way, but Warren Buffett's not leaving more than$250,000 to anybody.
SPEAKER_00: Because he believes that more than that will ruin them.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a really interesting thought.
SPEAKER_00: So what's he doing with the rest?
SPEAKER_00: He's giving it to different social uh justice organizations he believes in.
SPEAKER_00: Your threshold may be lower than that.
SPEAKER_00: You can do it.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, but I only have$10,000 that isn't worth it.
SPEAKER_00: It is.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's you, it's your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about living and dying the way you want to do.
SPEAKER_00: That I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: Another weird thing I'm gonna tell you.
SPEAKER_00: I probably shouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna stop recording.