In this episode of The Death Readiness Podcast, Jill is joined by Megan Malick, founder of A New Path, grief and after-loss educator, speaker, and author. Megan shares insights on navigating the complexities of loss, discussing why conversations about death readiness are so difficult, and offering practical steps to approach these conversations with loved ones. She also introduces her new book, A New Path: A Practical Workbook and Planner for the First Year of Grief and Settling Your Person’s Affairs, which serves as a compassionate guide through the emotional and logistical challenges of administering a loved one’s estate after a loss.
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Practical Takeaways
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Podcast editing provided by JAG in Detroit Podcasts
The Death Readiness Podcast
Episode: 4
Title: Conversations We Avoid: Death, Money and Planning Ahead
Host: Jill Mastroianni
Guest: Megan Malick
Published: January 31, 2025
Intro: Welcome to the Death Readiness Podcast. I'm Jill Mastroianni, an attorney with more than a decade of practical experience and trust in estates, here to demystify the complexities of planning for the inevitable. This podcast is your guide to navigating estate planning and end of life preparation with clarity, compassion, and empowerment. Let’s spark the conversation, shift perspectives, and explore how to embrace death readiness together, courageously and thoughtfully.
Jill Mastroianni: Hello and welcome back to The Death Readiness Podcast. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce our guest, Megan Malick, the founder of A New Path, a business dedicated to supporting caregivers and those tasked with managing their loved ones’ estates.
Megan brings a wealth of experience to her work with a background spanning education, ministry, and mental health. As a grief and after loss educator, author and speaker, Megan is passionate about helping individuals navigate the complexities of loss. She empowers people by building language and confidence around end-of-life and estate matters, turning what can feel overwhelming into meaningful, manageable steps. In today’s conversation, Megan will guide us through how to approach important discussions about death readiness with our loved ones. She'll also help us better understand the emotions that arise when having these conversations. And, we'll discuss Megan’s new book, which will be available this March. Megan, welcome to The Death Readiness Podcast. I'm so glad you're here with us today.
[1:43]
Megan Malick: Thank you so much for having me, Jill.
JM: Well, I am very excited to have this conversation, because I obviously have experience in the legal realm, and I think a lot of times what can be overlooked is the experience that a counselor or a therapist, someone with your background has, and the tools that you can bring to the table to help people through the process of grieving and mourning, and until looking at your website, I didn't even realize that those were two different things. But what I wanted to start with, because I have been talking to people about death readiness, getting their affairs in order, and a lot of times that is a very sensitive topic, and people don't know how to bring it up, and they don't know how to handle resistance that they might encounter. I know that you have helped a lot of people have these types of conversations. So I thought we could start out by talking about, why is it so hard? We all die. We know we're going to die. Why is it so hard to talk about or acknowledge that inevitable ending?
MM: First of all, I mean, it's mortality has its own fear with it. We don't know what's on the other side.
JM: Right.
MM: I also have really come to believe that as we've evolved as a society, death is no longer in our home. You might not know this, but once upon a time, people didn't only give birth in their homes, they also died in their homes. And people would come like the wake and the casket and all of that would be in the house. And so although death was painful and sad, it was not abnormal. It was part of the human condition and the human experience.
JM: Right.
MM: And in fact, the average marriage has been 12 years since they started recording how long marriages last. But prior to sometime in the early 70s, it was death that ended the marriage, and after that divorce.
JM: Okay, so death, prior to the 1970s, was the number one cause for a marriage ending.
MM: Prior to that time, because one of the two spouses passed away, statistically within a 12-year span of time, and then after that time, divorce has been the primary reason.
JM: Okay, so it wasn't as if we anticipated or anticipate today necessarily that the people in our lives today are going to be the people who are in our lives when we die, whether because of one of us dying before the other, or potentially divorce or potentially not dying in our own home and being with other people when that happens.
[4:44]
MM: We don't die at home. Dying has, I think, been started to be seen in the medical community, in particular, by some as like a disability or a failure, something to fight against, rather than a natural part of the human condition. Not that death conversations have ever been easy, and I think the unknown of dying and death itself, combined with the weight of that conversation make it difficult.
JM: And I think also we're not really just talking about death, we're talking about the potential for incapacity and losing your independence or having to rely on other people, I think, is something that is frightening for each of us, and becomes even more frightening the older we get and the closer we get to the potential of that loss of independence.
MM: I think there's that piece. And you know, within the mental health world, there's a lot of talk about loneliness being an epidemic right now.
JM: Yes.
MM: People being isolated. And there was a book written by Robert Putnam in the early 2000s, before 2010, called Bowling Alone, about how generationally we are less connected in communal ways, whether that be organized faith communities or rotary clubs or, you know, women's guilds and things like that. And the title Bowling Alone coming from the bowling league.
JM: Mmhmm.
MM: That used to be a popular place.
JM: Well, my dad actually is in a Wii bowling league. So you don't have to have a bowling alley.
MM: [laughing]
JM: You can, you can do it with Wii now, and it gets pretty competitive.
[6:37]
MM: But I think even people having people that they know make it difficult, like, who would I appoint? Do I have that person?
JM: And I think also the worry of becoming a burden to somebody, especially if we're worried about becoming a burden to our kids. And I saw something on social media that you had posted, I think it was on LinkedIn, and it was, I guess, a portrayal of how a parent could feel like they're being a burden by sharing information that's maybe not entirely positive about their life with a child because they don't think necessarily that that is the role that they should have, and then the child really wanting the parent to share things that are not positive, so that the child knows how he or she could participate in their parent’s life, and that doesn't feel like a burden because it's somebody you love and want to be able to help. The burden is really not knowing
MM: Yeah.
JM: and not knowing what you can do to help.
MM: Yeah, so I did, actually, that was pulled from, I'll put a little plug in for the Netflix show, Man on the Inside, starring Ted Danson.
JM: I'd heard of that.
MM: A delightful little series. You know, it starts off humorously. He's a widower, and his adult daughter tells him he needs to get a job, and so he becomes a private investigator at a retirement home and center where he lives to investigate a stolen piece of jewelry. And, the show really does, I think, invite us to open up intergenerational conversations, because you see some of the issues and the emotional side of aging. And, there's this beautiful scene with Ted Danson and his adult daughter. One of his friends from the community dies, and he comes to visit her. He shows up unannounced, and she's all irritated because, like, she's not expecting him. She's got work, she's got this and that. And she's like, why is he there? And, you know, she goes about her day, and he plays video games with his grandkids, and they start talking, and he discloses to his grandchildren that a friend of his passed away. And so when his daughter is driving him back, she's like, why do I have to hear from my kids that your friend died? And then he goes into this, you know, well, you're you're busy, and you've got all the stuff going on and, and like, you seem okay and, and why would I want to make Elizabeth, who's okay and happy, sad with the news that I lost my friend. I don't want to be a burden to you, and she's said, “That's just it, Dad, you not telling me is the burden.”
JM: Right.
MM: He says something like, as they go back and forth, that he ends with, “I never considered it that way.”
[9:34]
JM: Exactly, and I think that parents always want to be in that protector role. But, we are not always children, and the relationship can, and I think should change as we are older and more capable, and as our parents might need a little bit extra or a lot extra, you know, whatever that is being open and honest about what the needs are, can make a world of difference in making sure that those needs are met.
MM: A huge difference. I mean, first of all, from the side of a family therapist, marriage and family therapist, kind of recognizing that how people define words like “burden,” like what constitutes a burden might look different for me than for you. So even realize, oh, what you have as a need and I have as a need, are there different things, and then the role? What happens, like the changing roles, going from I'm the one that primarily receives the care to I'm the one that's primarily giving the care. That's a real shift in role.
JM: And yeah, I think that the change in relationship and the roles in relationship is certainly hard and something that requires some navigation, but getting back to having the conversations about death and incapacity with loved ones, whether or not there is a problem today that needs to be addressed, these conversations need to happen today, and they need to be ongoing conversations, not just a one and done and also, I think that a lot of times, because children of my generation in their 40s, you know, we have young kids potentially, and then we also have parents, and we might think,, okay, well, I'm just gonna go in and have a talk and get all the information right off the bat. Why don't you tell me why that's wrong and what would be a more productive and compassionate approach?
[11:50]
MM: It's funny. So there's getting it done and checking it off the list, and there's being in relationship with somebody, and then I think it's equally difficult for the person in their 40s, me or you, to really reckon our aging parents, and then what that means for our mortality as it is for our parent to talk about it. I think it's false to say that it's easy for anyone. And so I think to go like, okay, wait, this is hard. I've joked with people before to be like, you don't want to show up at Thanksgiving dinner unless you're like, at my table, and I, like, love these conversations and be like, so what do you want to have happen when you die? Like, that's heavy, that's a hard place to start. But like, what's low hanging fruit in your family? What's easy for you to talk about with your parent related to, like, a care need that they might have? Like, do they have a pet, and have they thought about what they'd like to have happen with that pet? Or digital things like, sometimes we're helping people figure out how to work with their cell phone or their laptop or any of that. And so you can even throw in, like, I heard this podcast. I was listening to The Death Readiness Podcast, and they were talking about the complexity of passwords and what that might be. And I was wondering, like, what do you do with yours? How do you do yours? And kind of just go in a little more gently if you really want to do the pragmatic side, and if you're into the emotional side, I think, kind of like the Netflix show, of like disclosing, I want to have this conversation with you, but I realize I'm afraid or I don't know how to start it like start gentle and slow and self-revealing.
JM: That is really helpful. And I'm fortunate that my dad is very open to having these conversations, and he has them with me. But I also do think it's important to show him that I'm not asking him to do something that I'm not willing to do. So when I was recently up there, we had this conversation, and I showed him how I organize what my assets are and what I've put together for my husband in case of an emergency. And would this be a good way for us to organize his information? And I gave him my information, because if something happens to me, I actually do want him to have it, and I know that's not always the case. You don't know who might get access to it, so I'm not necessarily recommending that, but it's just a way of communicating in a way that I think establishes trust.
[14:23]
MM: Yeah, I think I hear you saying, and this is definitely important in all relationships, you know, the relationship that you have with the person, ie, trustworthiness, or all of that. So, use your best judgment, and also like, what's a good way in? Jill, what I hear you saying is actually of the you know, I have five small steps to start a conversation, to go about it, and that this step is modeling and doing your own work. So I think doing your own and oftentimes we get our own sensitive spots from our parents. They may have the same pain point. So where you find yourself having resistance in doing it, there's a possibility that comes from somewhere where you come from, and so one, as you work it through it, can help you talk with them, or you can also really join and connect with your parents. So for example, you know, I was giving the talk planning for peace, and I was talking about, like, one of the things being some people are afraid. They realize they have a an implicit belief, or an invisible belief, that if they talk about death or plan for it, it will make it happen. I've given this talk a couple of times, and more than once, more than one person that's sitting there is like, oh my gosh, I think I have that. And I've talked to a couple of clients, and as they've talked it through and been like, do you think your parent could have that, too? And so the leverage then being when they go to talk with their parent, they're able to say, like, “Hey, I I'm afraid to talk about this because of this, do you have that too?” And then the parent to go, like, “Yes, I do have that too.
JM: Right.
MM: And then that starts to open up, and then you're having a totally different conversation.
JM: So you had just mentioned, when we talked about modeling, that that was one of the five steps to have a conversation. Might I ask, what your other steps are that you can share with us?
[16:08]
MM: So the first one, I call them the four M's, which is looking at like, what's your motivation for having this? Keep in mind, when you're going to somebody else and asking for something, we're going that to them to actually meet our need. So for example, yes, I absolutely, I'm on this podcast. It's my whole business. I want for you to plan. Please plan, and I want for you to plan, because it will make everything easier. But the reality is, when I want my older parent to plan, it's so that my life is easier, not their life. So I'm asking something of them, so being really clear with my motivation, knowing how I feel about money. A lot of people, if they're comfortable with mortality, they may not be comfortable with money. And these conversations often include both, so kind of getting a litmus test for your comfort level with money and mortality, knowing where you start, and seeing if you can have some curiosity. And then the fourth M that I believe is helpful is meaning like, that's where, for me, the energy, the gas, the drive for having these conversations and doing the hard work of it. Because these can be very meaningful. They can help you learn yourself, your person, your relationship, better. And if you can anchor into that, that will help you plan for picking out maybe a small area. Like you had said, “Hey, I have this stuff. I have this organizational system that I've done already. I'm going to go to my dad and I'm going to show him this, or ask him about this.
JM: So we talked about the four M's. Could you just list those four M's again?
MM: Sure, so there's the motivation, there's my feelings about money, my implicit thoughts and beliefs like talking about money is evil, talking about money is bad, talking about money makes me greedy.
[17:53]
JM: Okay, so we have motivation, money.
MM: Mortality. I believe I'm going to die, or my parent is going to die, or if we talk about this, it’s going to bring it on. And some of these other beliefs about death, that talking about death is bad or wrong, will bring it on. And then the fourth – meaning -- that helps you address all three of these. That's all part of the first like getting clear with yourself before you even go to have a conversation.
JM: So these are the things that you think about before you have the conversation, and then having the conversation, or the five steps to begin a conversation, is that something different?
MM: To me, this pre is the beginning of the conversation because you're starting it before you even initiate it.
JM: Okay.
MM: You're starting it. Good communication doesn't just happen. It takes practice. It takes planning. It takes intention. And so I think taking some real time to consider where you stand with the four M's is step one, and then planning into like, okay, what is an easy area for me and this person to begin talking about?
JM: Okay, one thought I had with the money aspect and talking about money. And I don't know if this is really where you are going, but I certainly understand that there are different levels of disclosure that different people are comfortable with, and I would not want to pressure someone, you don't ever want to pressure, but especially to give more information about finances than someone is comfortable with. But the information that you give or the information you receive, it is always better than no information. So if you're comfortable saying that Joe Smith is my financial advisor. He has some information about my assets. I bank at XYZ bank. Those are all really great starting points and narrow the scope of the universe that would have to be investigated to find what the person owns, if something were to happen.
[20:03]
MM: Yes, totally. I'm not saying, I'm saying, I think our implicit beliefs keep us even from feeling comfortable asking about who the financial advisor.
JM: I see, okay.
MM: Or sharing who the financial advisor is, because in some families, talking about money is like, off the table totally so that even the simplest things that touch it make it be, oop, don't talk about that.
JM: And money, of course, could be sensitive, because maybe, you know, one child has a history of asking for money or has a greater need for money and substance abuse in the family.
MM: There are so many complicating things, and so kind of getting clear with what is it that makes these conversations difficult? Not that you should tackle that, but to then separate that and say, okay, so we're going to start with a low and easy thing, like, where do you bank?
JM: Right.
MM: Which maybe that is a difficult question for your family, but maybe it's not, but most people, it kind of just all gets glummed into one big knot.
JM: Right. Also, there's the possibility that maybe, if you're the one asking your parent, maybe your parent is more comfortable with another sibling or another family member or another person and and it's always okay, although perhaps difficult to say, I have gone through this information with Cousin Mary, and she has this and if there's information that you want to make sure I give to her to make whatever happens easier for her then I am happy to take those suggestions and make sure that she is well-equipped.
MM: Yeah. So even giving permission for that to even say, I don't expect for it to be me. It doesn't need to be me. Who can we have?
JM: Exactly. I think that is a really good point. There are family dynamics that might be in your family that you're unaware of. So just making sure that having the conversation doesn't mean that you're the one expecting to receive the information.
[22:14]
MM: No, and that's all part of that first the beginning of like really considering and being clear with yourself when you go into the conversation like, well, what really am I expecting out of this? Picking a slow, gentle area to start, kind of asking for a very specific and concrete thing?
JM: Well, then I'm going to take you back, because I want to go through these five steps that you have to start a conversation. Because I did look at them in advance, and I think they're really helpful. So I want to go through the five.
MM: So step one is making the unseen seen.
JM: Making the unseen seen is what we talked about with regards to the money and mortality earlier. Could you just touch on that briefly for us?
MM: Money and the mortality and the like, oh, crap, what makes this so hard is that I actually have all this belief system, and so does my parent have all this belief system, and so does society, and we have all these hidden beliefs.
JM: Okay, so that's what we already talked about. And then step two is the go low and slow.
MM: Yeah, go low and slow.
JM: Can you give an example of what that might look like?
MM: Sure. So we're actually talking about it a little bit right here, you know, Jill, you're saying, like, Well, if there's this whole, I don't mean disclose all of the money, so to just, you know, be able to kind of say, like, Okay, I know, like, they talk about going to the bank. I have a parent that still goes to the, like, the actual in person, brick and mortar bank. And so you could say, like, Okay, I'm going to come in and just say, hey, you know, I've heard you talk about going to the bank, and I've just been thinking that it would be good for you to know where I bank, and it might be good for me to know where you bank and introduce that, because if something were to happen, then we would just know. And so it's, like, very gentle, and it's slow, and it's sort of checking in, and you kind of see how the other person is, rather than, like, saying a whole paragraph, one sentence, and then you kind of pause and you just see how the other person takes what you've just requested in.
[24:18]
JM: Exactly, and as we talk about these conversations are ongoing, so maybe you talk about where you bank, you don't have to get 100% of the information in that first conversation, and you really shouldn't, because it would be incredibly overwhelming.
MM: Step three is to get concrete.
JM: Okay, so going low and slow, it kind of flows seamlessly into the get concrete, because just doing one small thing, but making that small item a concrete item, such as, where do you bank?
MM: Yes, the tip that I have for concrete is kind of back to elementary school with the who, what, when, where, how. “Why” is not a question that you want to bring into these conversations?
JM: Okay.
MM: “Why” can open up tricky things. Not that why is bad question, but related to this, why takes us out of the concrete and gets us more into the abstract.
JM: Okay, what is step four?
MM: Good communication. And so I don't know about you, maybe you have a different experience, but most of us, myself included, all the good communication strategies that I know that I teach people, that I practice, that when I'm in a work situation seem like they happen more effortlessly, when I'm with my family of origin, sometimes don't happen, or they happen the least easily.
[25:41]
JM: You know, I was thinking about some communications that I've had with family members in anticipation of our conversation today. And I have a family member and I'm this family member's agent under his healthcare power of attorney, and he was hospitalized with sepsis, and I kind of went down the rabbit hole of what could happen as complications with sepsis, and I flat out asked him, would you still want to live if you had to have your legs amputated? And boy, was that concrete, but that was not good communication. I just went right for it, because it was in my head and then it was out of my mouth, and this individual said, why don't we just play that by ear if it happens? And I said, Okay. So I thought, yes, I would never think of saying that to someone that I'm not close with, but it almost caused me to breach a barrier that should be really very visible as a reasonable person, who I think I am, and was just not thinking appropriately.
MM: Because when we're in these situations, our emotions get stirred up. We are people, so grief and fear and wanting to do the best we can, like, caring about the person and doing diligence, it's just so human, right?
JM: And I was thinking if a doctor asked me this question, if this happens again, I want to 100% know what my relative’s answer is, because I don't want to make the wrong call.
MM: Yeah.
JM: And you know that really blinded my better judgment and how to practice good communication. So that is step four. Practice good communication. And I would say especially with your own family, because that's where you might slip up a little bit when you're not realizing it.
MM: Yeah, it's the easiest to not have it. I think often these conversations happen when some sort of crisis happens, either within the family or with somebody close, and like, a conversation starts and it kind of snowballs. So there isn't that kind of addressing the invisible things that are there in step one, because the invisible is like literally playing out, making the unseen seen. The unseen has become seen in a way that's like, all over the place, but the conversations having us rather than us having the conversation. And it goes usually like, what you were saying to the like, well, what about your legs being amputated? Do you want to do that? Rather than
JM: Right (chuckling)
MM: Well, how about we talk about where you bank or or even even checking in if somebody's in the hospital like, well, how is your care? How is this for you? Where are you today? Tell me what your day is like. How can I better advocate for you? What are you needing from me?
[28:49]
JM: Yes, those would all have been great questions.
MM: But Jill, I just want to affirm like, for myself included, how difficult it is to stay in that grounded place, in these moments.
JM: Right, when you are not the professional, you are the family member.
MM: That's right. So even when you're the professional, but you're in your own family, like we say, you can't be a therapist for your own family.
JM: Yeah, right.
MM: That said, one of the things that I believe goes along with good communication when you're the initiator in these conversations, is to be the curious question asker and the active listener, not the teller of what you should do or the I'm going to teach you about this stuff.
JM: So what would be an example of a curious question?
MM: Like what I was just saying, if your uncle's in sepsis, and so, how are you? What's happening today for you? What are your needs? How can I better advocate for you? When the doctor is here and explaining things, would you like for me to be here to maybe help translate some of that for you?
JM: Okay.
MM: Or related to, you know, you want to initiate one of these conversations, and you've decided you're going to choose banking, I think it's always helpful to ask permission before you even start the conversation. So hey, I'd like to have a conversation about ________, would now be okay? Can we do that? And if they say no, rather than justifying why you need to have the conversation, a curious question would be, well, do you mind sharing with me, when would be good? Or what makes you say no, how I understand where you're coming from?
JM: Okay, so that would be even just trying to have the initial conversation with somebody.
MM: Yeah, so if you get resistance, something's happening. And therapy, we say resistance is where the gold is, because it tells you that there's a story that hasn't been heard or seen or talked about, one of those lurking beliefs is likely there.
JM: Okay, so I just want to go through again. Number one, make the unseen seen. Number two, go low and slow. Number three, get concrete. Number four, practice good communication. And then number five is our last one in the five small steps to begin a conversation. And what is that step five?
MM: That's modeling by doing your own planning and preparing.
JM: Okay.
MM: I don't know if you have found this, but I have found folks in their 40s may have a will, but that doesn't mean they're really ready if an emergency were to happen, and really what they're seeking from their parents often isn't a will, because potentially the parents have a will, but there's a lot between what is happening, like with your uncle, and a will. And so how do we stack these smaller pieces together? And so I encourage people who are in the sandwich generation to do some of the work of planning and organizing their own work, one to just get a sense of how much work it actually is like, what are they asking for?
[32:03]
JM: Right, you need to know what you're asking for, and I think that's part of modeling to show again, if you're comfortable what you've done, or even if you're not comfortable showing the information, what forms did you fill out, or how did you organize the information for yourself.
MM: Yes, or even if you get stuck doing something and say, you know, I was doing all of this and then, for whatever reason, I hit this one thing and I'm having real difficulty with it. Do you have any advice for me?
JM: Right. I think that's really important, because if you haven't done something yourself, it is really hard to relate to someone that you're asking to put together information, and if you don't really know what you're asking for, then that's harder to get what you are hoping to receive, because you're not sure what you would like to receive. So that part of getting concrete, having what you think is a good plan, you know, in front of you, and and talking through whatever aspect makes sense to talk through at that particular time.
MM: I wholeheartedly believe that the only reason I don't have that be number one is because to get people buying in to number five, I've discovered the first four help them believe me, about number five. (chucking)
JM: Right.
MM: if that makes any sense (still chuckling)
JM: Yes. And I've even talked with people as a consultant about what would be appropriate to get in place for themselves, and had them say, oh my gosh, I need to talk to my parents. I need to get all their information. And I'll say, but you don't really know what you're asking for. So why don't we figure out what is going to work for you, and then have you understand what is helpful in this situation, and so you're not going in and asking for something that you aren't able to even really articulate.
MM: Yes.
[34:04]
JM: Okay, so I'd like to pivot a little bit and talk about your new book, which I mentioned in the introduction, but I'm going to say it again. It's called A New Path, a practical workbook and planner for the first year of grief and settling your person's affairs. I was hoping that you could tell us what inspired you to write this book and how you're hoping people will use this book, because I'm thinking it's probably a tool you wish might have been available to you.
MM: Yeah, so that actually is one of the inspirations. In January of 2022 my mother completely unexpectedly died. The autopsy was inconclusive.
JM: Hmhmm.
MM: And my father became, um, he developed pneumonia and became terminally ill less than a month after mom died.
JM: Oh, wow.
MM: And within three months of her passing, and although he had gotten her will out of the safe deposit box and had met with the attorney one time, in his three healthy weeks, nothing had actually started with her estate. So when he died, the will was not enough clarity for doing lots of the things. Now, thankfully, because of the family that we have, I did know where to find files and very detailed Excel spreadsheet and QuickBooks, but I hadn't met their financial planner. I hadn't met their accountant, and I found myself going, well, what are the steps to this? And people were like, talking to me, but I was so in grief. I was like, I just like, I need something on a piece of paper. I need a checklist. I need you to chunk my list down, not like, tell me the whole thing. Like, just, what do you need me to do for next week?
JM: Right, what are the baby steps?
MM: What are the baby steps? And when you've never done it, you don't know how to chunk for yourself. And when you have a brain and grief, you really struggle to chunk for yourself.
[36:15]
JM: Well, it's a totally new subject area. If it's not what you do for a living, you really should not expect to know how to handle the administration. But society does expect everyone to know.
MM: It does. Society expects that. So I wrote the book I wish I would have had. The other piece is within a year of my parents passing my best friend, my spouse's best friend and our closest like couple friends lost both of her parents in quick succession. My best friend lost her dad, and my spouse's best friend lost his dad. So, all of a sudden I have people coming to me because they're trying to navigate all of this, and so I started to write and send them things, because I was still in the process of administering my parents’ things. And the feedback was, this is really good and helpful. You should do something with this.
JM: So you have a new company called A New Path. Are you offering services as an after loss professional, mainly, or are you combining that with grief counseling? How does what you're you're offering, combine your various experiences?
MM: I would say I am not providing grief counseling in the standard sense of grief counseling. What I do is bring my background in counseling and grief counseling to the work of the paperwork so that I can be with you and your task list or help ask you curious questions about it. So, for example, I knew prior to my experience to ask questions about like, tell me about your sleeping, how about your eating and your water consumption. I did not know to ask, hey, how is it going with getting death certificates or how are you handling going to the bank and having assets transferred? Do you have a friend that you could take with you? Would you like help creating a list of people that could help you with these logistical tasks. And I think because we are tend to be counseling here and after loss here, if you will, like logistical here, we haven't crossed and so I'm working with folks to try to bring the emotional support to the practical. But I'd also really like people who come from the more emotional support world to learn a little bit, frankly, about
JM: Sure.
MM: all of the things that are involved, so that they can ask more clear questions, just like we do when people have substance use problems, or just like we do when people are diagnosed with dementia, or just like we do when people have anxiety or like we ask specific questions and assess specific areas that we know, areas where they're running into challenges. But you have to know, like what you said, if society expects us to know this, but we don't, well, if you're a grief counselor and you don't know this whole area, you're not as able to be there.
[39:22]
JM: I liked what you had written about the double whammy of grief and estate administration, and one of the pieces that you wrote talked about every time you got an email or some notification about something related to one of your parents’ estates, it was as if a new wave of grief would descend. How does this book help people cope with the grief but the necessary estate administration as well?
MM: Yeah, I think there are several ways it helps. One of the first being to simply say, if this is happening to you, yes, there's nothing wrong with you. We call them grief triggers. Or you might have heard the word trigger or activate our grief activator. So anything that touches upon your loss will activate your grief. There's no way around it. And so, you know, sometimes people think, am I going crazy? And so the book says you might be having this experience. No, you're not going crazy. This is what happens. Then it provides some ways that you can what I call ritualize. Ritualize is something that we talk about in grief support that helps kind of give it a meaning and give it a container. So, like, I'm going to sit and I'm going to do this work now, and I'm going to do this, and then when I'm done, I'm going to close this.
JM: Okay.
MM: So that I can hopefully boundary it a little bit and leave it and it doesn't, I mean, it is not. I make it sound like it's this process that's like do-do-do (slaps hands) and that like, that's not how it is, and it's an anchor to help you kind of come back. Okay. There's this. I also provide practices, really practical practices for you to be with yourself in grief as you go through it, some journal writing processes, some monthly check-ins for yourself.
[41:19]
JM: So another thing that I wanted to talk about that I saw in your book that is really helpful is your guidance in enabling people to ask for help. And I think asking for help is really difficult, and a lot of people don't acknowledge that, and you had in your book even sample texts or emails that you could send to someone asking for help. But you didn't stop there. You also told us, okay, if we can't even remember or think about who are the people we would ask for help. Scroll through your phone, see who you texted recently, look on social media, sort of normalizing the fact that your brain is maybe not going to have everything together like you would expect it to on a regular basis. And then once you've figured out who those friends are, going a step deeper and separating them into categories based on the type of assistance that friend would be most capable of giving. And you gave these types of friends—they're named after trees.
MM: Yes.
JM: Do you want to just take us through that a little bit the different types of tree groups you you might have as friends.
MM: I call the people, and likely there will only be a couple of these, because they're people that know you well enough, like often best man or maid-of-honor and wedding are like people like a redwood tree, they just know you really well. So they can come in and run your house if you need your house run. You can cry on their shoulder. You can be sick in front of them. They can kind of just step in with, like, whatever your need might be, without you even telling them.
JM: Okay.
MM: And they're good at, like, all the different areas. They can cheer you up. They can hear you cry. They can do practical things. They can boss people around. They know what your family needs for meals. They'd be like, yes, this is a gluten free blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I call them redwoods and they, they're kind of like the just everything you need, friend.
JM: Okay.
MM: You're likely only going to have a couple of these, and that's also normal, because we don't have the ability to develop that kind of relationship with tons and tons and tons of people. The next ones, I think, are super important to break down, because then we are more likely to get our need met. So, oak trees.
JM: I would say, I'm an oak tree.
[43:54]
MM: Yes. So oak trees are so vital, you can ask them to, like, put the meal train together, do a sign up, genius for you. Hey, can you come over and help me pack things? Can you help me clean out my person's house? Can you come with me and sort through the like, do I need to keep this or not? They are like the worker bees, the do things, and they also will have the prefrontal cortex ability to likely help you organize when you can't do that for yourself, like, even if you're good at that, often in the throes of acute grief, our brains, just like, can't think that complexly to organize something and that kind of rumination can get started. So
JM: Right.
MM: the oak tree is like super to have by your side when you need to have any kind of organizational thinking happening.
JM: So when I was looking at your book and I saw the oak tree, you know, that really resonated with me. And I also thought this is really where life planning and death readiness intersect. Because if you want someone who is an oak tree in your life to come and take over certain aspects of your life, could you come and house sit? Can you come and take care of the pet? Can you take care of the after school, pickup for the kids, all of those things they might be hard to ask someone to help you with, because you have to give so much information along with that. So what I usually do, Megan, is have some sort of practical takeaway with the podcast. So as part of the assistance for the oak trees in the world, I'm going to link in the show notes to a home information sheet, a pet information sheet and a child information sheet. So if something happens in your life and you need help, you're not going to be in a state to be getting all this information together. So you have that sheet already prepared, and you hand it to your oak tree and say, Can you deal with this?
[46:04]
MM: Absolutely and ideally, you have, like, an oak tree that's like, I'm going to be the mother or father oak tree, if you will, the parent oak tree. And I will tell all of the other oak trees what they're going to do.
JM: Exactly. And that, I think, is really crucial. But now I'll let you get onto the other trees. I just wanted to shout out to the oak trees.
MM: Yeah. And here, here for the pre-planning, and I'm actually working on a resource called the essentials that actually has some similar things, like, what you're talking about, Jill, to be like, if you have this ahead of time, that way, when you have those oak trees, it's like, go.
JM: Exactly. Yeah. Household management.
MM: Household management. Weeping willow is your friend that can hear you tell the story over and over. They will not tell you, just get over it. Just buck up buttercup. They won't give you some pleasantry about grief. They'll just let you cry. They'll just let you be upset. They're okay if you're sad, mad, smad, which is sad and mad, together, angry, guilty, all the different feelings. They are your feeling friend.
JM: Okay.
MM: Super also helpful to have in grief, and will likely be the people to like, come over with the ice cream and when you need to watch a movie and all of that.
JM: The emotional care.
MM: Yeah. And then I call them the fruit trees. And those are the friends that are really good at distraction, or getting you out of the house, getting you to do a thing. You might have a day where you're like, I just want to not think about this. Like, I just need to get this off of my mind. And your oak tree is like, but here's the spreadsheet.
JM: Right (chuckling)
MM: And the weeping willow was like, but I'm here to be with you and all of the feelings, and I love you. And that's when you might want a fruit tree to just be like, yeah, you want to go to the movies? Let's go to the movies. You know, hey, let's treat ourselves. Let's get one of the big sodas and the big popcorn, and let's watch this, I don't know, movie that has nothing to do with anything serious, perhaps even like an action movie.
[48:06]
JM: Sure does that round out the types of trees, and then you have the forest rangers, right? The other type of helper.
MM: The other type of helper. So an after loss professional would be a forest ranger.
JM: That's what you do, and that is a lot of hand holding through what is a very cumbersome administrative process, and then often the after loss professional can help coordinate with the other forest rangers, if you will, the attorney, the financial advisor.
MM: Yes. And so I think it's helpful when you are in it say as the appointed a decider, whatever that might be, or even a family member that's not in the official role legally as the decider, but might be saying like, hey, you're the person that's going to be in charge of researching and figuring out what we're doing with the house and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's helpful to know that forest rangers provide paid tasks, but they're not like friends, and I think it can be unclear if you've never looked at it. So the forest rangers are your estate attorney, your accountant or your tax professional, your financial advisor, your after loss professional, your insurance broker, potentially family therapist or other counselor, hospice worker, medical provider, all of the folks that are part of the navigation of this whole journey that families are on, that people are on. They know the trails but they might not know you as well at the beginning.
[49:40]
JM: Right. So your book, is that coming out next month? Am I right, in February?
MM: Pre-order is February 19, and publish is March 19.
JM: So is it possible to pre order now?
MM: There is a link on the website that says pre-order and so what happens then is you will get an email that says, hey, pre-order is available. And what makes pre-order important is it gives the publisher and the printing company an idea of the book, and it helps me to kind of generate ideas, and helps the book potentially make more copies over the life of its existence.
JM: Okay, so you can go to and I'll put the link in the show notes to your website, where you click on a link to pre-order, but essentially it will send you a reminder email on February 19, when you can actually pre-order, and that's when you'll you'll take care of the transaction. Okay, so I'm going to link that in the show notes. But again, as I mentioned in the last episode, you can always find what's in the show notes on my website. So it's oversimplyllc.com/podcast Is there anything else that you wanted to mention Megan as a takeaway or kind of reminder?
MM: I think the biggest thing that I hope that people take away is the reason that both the conversations and the process are difficult is because they are. They touch what's most essential and meaningful about life, and that is our life, what we make meaning of. And so the conversations are very worthwhile. But if, please, don't be hard on yourself, if you're finding that it's hard.
JM: That's really valuable to say, not to be hard on yourself, even if it's hard. Because even though I do this type of work for a living, and have been an estates and trust attorney for a long time, doing this sort of work on my own, it is not seamless. It doesn't come easily, just like having conversations with my own family doesn't necessarily come easily because we're in it. So I think it is always easier to help others, and doing it yourself is going to be a little bit more difficult, and to show yourself some grace when you're trying to do that is really important, and to know that that is completely normal to have difficulty taking care of your own things.
MM: Absolutely, I just really like to honor that.
JM: All right, well, thank you very much, Megan, for spending some time with us today, and we wish you the best of luck with your book.
MM: Thank you very much.
[52:23]
JM: Before we wrap up, I want to remind you that while I am an attorney, I'm not your attorney. The death readiness podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. Use of this information without careful analysis and review by your attorney, CPA and/or financial advisor may cause serious adverse consequences. I provide no warranty or representation concerning the appropriateness or legal sufficiency of this information as to any individual's tax and related planning. For legal guidance tailored to your unique situation, consult with a licensed attorney in your state. To learn more about the services I offer, you can visit oversimplyllc.com
April: Hi, I'm April, Jill's daughter. Thanks for listening to The Death Readiness Podcast. My mom always says that death readiness isn't just about planning, it's about the people you leave behind and the legacy you create for them. We hope today's episode helps you think about how to take care of yourself and your loved ones, now and in the future. If you liked what you heard today, share this episode with someone you care about. Follow our show for free on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you're listening right now.