Matt Jacobson’s Journey into Grief, Legacy, and End-of-Life Reflections

Matt Jacobson shares the story of how losing his father changed the course of his life and inspired a deeper connection to legacy, grief, and purpose. This episode is a heartfelt reflection on fatherhood, the impact of grief, and how honoring a loved one can lead to unexpected healing and direction.

Matt grew up in Temecula, California, and was studying finance at San Diego State when he received the devastating call that his father had died. He left his plans behind and returned home to take over the family’s mattress store, an unexpected path that placed him squarely in his father’s shoes. As he ran the business, memories of his dad flooded back, especially their early morning conversations and the life lessons tucked into everyday moments. His dad had been a single father raising three boys, encouraging learning through reading and sparking Matt’s entrepreneurial spirit in creative ways, like hiding pizza money in exchange for reading assignments.

Grief gave Matt a new lens on life. He began thinking more about legacy and how quickly someone’s story can fade unless it’s captured. His father's quiet wisdom, deep respect for education, and stoic leadership had shaped Matt's values. Though his father rarely raised his voice, his words held lasting power. Matt recalls their last hike together before studying abroad, unaware that it would be one of their final moments together. His father had hidden the return of his cancer—a selfless act so Matt wouldn’t worry. Just weeks later, Matt got the call: his father was gone.

This conversation touches on grief, healing, the transition of roles after death, and how we honor those we’ve lost. It’s significant for anyone interested in death doula work, end-of-life planning, or creating legacy projects for loved ones.

Learn more about Life Books at https://lifebooks.io/

https://www.instagram.com/lifebooks.io/

Transcript

Matt: [00:00:00] How powerful it is to preserve legacy and preserve the wisdom they imparted because we all have to go through this walk of life and knowing about their strengths and their resilience makes you feel better connected to the shared experience you are gonna face. 

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly.

I'm your host, Jill McClennan, a death doula and end of life coach. Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself. My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true.

In this episode, Matt Jacobson shares how the sudden death of his father changed the course of his life. After his father's death, Matt returned home to take over the family's mattress store, an unexpected role that led to deep reflection on legacy, purpose, and healing. He recalls tender [00:01:00] memories like trading, reading assignments for pizza, money, and quiet early morning conversations.

Filled with life lessons. As Matt navigated his grief, he began to understand how quickly a person's story can fade unless it's intentionally preserved. This heartfelt conversation explores the impact of loss, the transition of roles after death, and how honoring those we loved can help us find meaning in our own lives.

Thank you for listening to this conversation. Welcome, Matt to the podcast. I'm excited to have you on today. We actually have already talked once before and you told me all about your business and why you started it, but why don't you give us a little bit of background first about who you are, where you're from, anything like that that you wanna share.

Matt: Thanks, Jill. Thank you for having me on. It's good to connect with you again. My name is Matt Jacobson. I grew up in Temecula, California. I was studying at San Diego State. And it was in my second year when we were studying abroad, my current wife and I, and that's [00:02:00] really when we got the call to come home.

Because of the unfortunate loss of my dad, I was studying finance. I never anticipated getting into this space, but as soon as I got the call, um, I ended up taking over the family mattress store. So I work at a mattress store full time. I run a mattress business. I always tell people I don't lose sleep at night, but I.

No one really loves their mattress, do they? People love their mattress. But yeah, it was when I took over the family business and every day I'm doing what my dad had done. That's when I started thinking about his life and his legacy and how in a generation or two it maybe forgotten it kind of brought my call to this commemorative book space.

I love to, in my free time. Take a walk with my dog, spend time with my wife, and on occasion go up to the mountains and go snowboarding or skiing with my wife. That's a little bit about me, but again, thanks for having me on. I'm happy to share [00:03:00] my story today. 

Jill: Well, thank you for joining me 'cause I know you're a very busy person.

And actually I didn't realize that you ran your dad's mattress store, so he even have more going on than I thought you did. That's really neat that you took over his business. And so when you were growing up, were you and your father close? What was your relationship like? 

Matt: Oh yeah, extremely close. I mean, because he worked retail and he was kind of a one man band at the mattress store.

We only got to spend a lot of time, early mornings and then late nights. But those early morning chats that we would have left a huge imprint in my life. It would just be him and me, or my siblings and I. We always talk about the car rides to school. I. And how we grew up and the news was always on, but more so the stock market was always on.

He would just talk to us about the economy and how if this is going on in the world, gold would go up if this is going on and this is what [00:04:00] you wanna look to. And it was really just a aeclectic lesson. He would just always be giving to us. A lot of what he taught me was. With few words, but with heavy impact, reading was a huge part of our lives.

He would hide $20 in the house for pizza, and he'd be at the mattress store, of course, and he'd say, okay, you have to read in until this page and then gimme a call. And then you'd read the book, maybe 60 pages and call him and he quiz us, okay, what happened here? What did they say there? And what do you think about this?

I. How do you feel about what they said? If you actually read, you find out where the pizza money was hidden. That was kind of just his way of keeping his hand on us and growing us even when he wasn't in the home. But the late evenings, same thing. Come home from work, he'd quickly make some [00:05:00] dinner. Single father, so running a house with three boys, we trash the house every day like, and he would.

He asked me, Hey, I need to clean up the house. And that's when actually like first business, I went to the neighborhood and I recruited some kids to help clean my house. My dad gave me something like $60 to clean this house and I gave each of the kids $10 and then I oversaw them as we pulled from a hat chores to do, they would clean up the house and get paid $10 each was these three kids, they were triplets.

Their mom actually got mad at me because now they didn't want to clean up their own house without getting paid. I had this little practice yelling once a week we'd be cleaning the house and kind of the entrepreneurial spirit started there. My dad would always be really encouraging and supportive whenever it came to things like that, especially education, how many books you could read.

It was a big part of [00:06:00] growing up. He once told me, if you learn one thing from a book, it was worth reading. Because how much do you really know? He also told me there's a lot of great people out there that have written books and anything I haven't taught you, you can learn from reading. I. There was a lot of wisdom imparted growing up in the household that I grew up in.

It was kind of a wolves den, just my brothers and I being very competitive and trying to capture my dad's eye. Very stoic man. Very hard to get. Hi his respect, but it wasn't like athletic accolades. Those were good, but it was academia and how much we learned and grew. Just him always pushing us in those spaces because.

He anticipated. Now, this is a tough world, and it's even tougher when you don't know how the instructions are laid out. It's kind of a crapshoot, and it's not really a meritocracy in some regard. It's not those who work the hardest, but those who work diligently and [00:07:00] focused and those who position themselves to be successful.

Unfortunately, a lot of people work really hard in the states, but they don't benefit from all the hard work because. The system is hard. In some instances, it's not really structured or geared towards you in a benevolent way, but a lot of people, you know, don't follow. A blueprint and just go at it every day.

You have to be meticulous, you have to be timely. You have to lean towards those who've done it before, those who've written a book. There's gotta be something in there, some gem, some golden nugget. It was a really great nurturing household. Wasn't super masculine in any way, but more so just a lot of respect and a lot of kindness.

I can literally recall one time where my dad actually yelled at me in my life. He was someone of a few words, but man, did they have impact? He could tear you down with one line. It [00:08:00] was really interesting growing up and hearing about how other households are governed. My household was just bombs being dropped in the verbal sense of like, dang, that was a lot of truth to that.

I'm gonna go back outside like that's a while and get that yard work done if you want told me to look around. I paid for everything you see. I owe you nothing. You'll do what I say. And I looked around and I was like, dang, like that's absolutely truth. Or another moment he had said, do as I say, not as I do.

Which was an interesting one. But yeah, no, he was the leader of the house and a huge impact in my life, my brother's lives. Those morning chats, we all talk about 'em 'cause we all got 'em at different points of his life and how huge those were for us. So. Great relationship, lot of respect, and just hold 'em in very high regard.

Jill: Hmm. That's beautiful. And it does sound like he shared a lot of wisdom with you. Sometimes I think about that. I'm busy, my [00:09:00] husband's busy, he travels a lot. And you do wonder if you spend enough time with the kids and if you're having enough conversations and if you're doing enough of those things. But I guess sometimes it's not so much the amount, but the time that you do spend really connecting and taking the time to have the conversation, to listen and to support, to just fully be present is more important than being around constantly.

So I think that's really lovely. 

Matt: Absolutely. Like a lot of households grow up, their parents are always around, they're always present and, but it's the impact in that time. Some people want their parents to be their best friend, but that's not what they're your parents for In my household, dad was my friend, but he wasn't my best friend.

He was the leader of the family. He was the steward, he was the law. But it, no, I, I don't know how I could have chalked it up [00:10:00] better in that he always used short story, just little anecdotes, pieces, lot of metaphors. To really bring us to a common ground, whether I was 16. He was able to level with me in ways that were abstract at first, but then they became concrete.

Especially as I grew up, anytime I haven't listened to my dad's words, I'd caught myself in a pickle like he said, this would happen if I did this, and sure enough it did. But that comes from a long life of living and experiencing. I'm still new to this world as a young adult, still figuring it out, so I'll keep leaning towards his sage wisdom.

Jill: How old was your father when he died? 

Matt: He was 62, so he is rather young. When I went into college, he was diagnosed with esophagal cancer and we were given six months. Fortunately, [00:11:00] thankful to God, we got two years. Before I left for Europe, I didn't know his cancer came back. We went on a hike, him and I, and it was one of his last huge selfless acts.

We are on this hike and it's kind of like, I'll check, just checking in on him. We do about five, six miles. He asked me, do you want to keep going? I was like, no, I'm leaving to Europe tomorrow, dude, I gotta go. But at that point we'd been chatting the entire time. It was an amazing dialogue we had when I left.

I had no, just no bits of understanding that like the cancer already came back and he was sick. During that hike, two and a half weeks later I get the call and this is crazy 'cause Covid o's going on. So countries are closing before us. This is March, 2020. We didn't know if we were even gonna make it to Italy, like Italy had just closed.

We were thinking, how do we pivot our plans? And I get a call [00:12:00] by my oldest brother to come home after a train from Madrid to LAX. Literally like 17 hours of travel, just crying the whole way crazy. In Madrid, I literally got flagged because I was crying so much and I moved into a room. Strip searched, and that was like the worst.

I remember thinking like the worst day of my life, the next day was worse and I totally forgot about it, but now I think back and I'm like, that's awful. So I'm crying hysterically. I get strip searched and like, this sucks. I don't even know if my dad's gonna be alive. We land in LAX and my siblings are there waiting for me in the terminal.

It's kind of that unspoken confirmation because. My siblings range from 30 to 17, all come together very often. And to see them all there, I'm just like, just hits you like a really sad, scary movie. [00:13:00] And the next day we're at his memorial and then his burial, and the next day I'm at the mattress store figuring everything out.

And I'd only had delivery experience in the mattress store. My prior experience was in financial sales. I had a financial sales internship, which I don't miss at all. Cold calling. Um, like, no, it was really interesting 'cause people buy mattresses not just one time in their lives, multiple times. The store had been open for about 24 years.

My dad had already sold beds to a lot of the customers. We've been in the community for a long time, so I'm getting these customers that come in and they're like, where's the old man? Oh, every day you're just getting hit. Yesterday I had two of his old customers, and at the beginning you just. We're at his funeral.

It was extremely hard and Covid is going on. We were in this position of like, are we essential? Are we [00:14:00] not essential because we do medical beds? We were essential and everyone needs a mattress. There was a whole thing in my town whether or not we're able to stay open. We get this experience of having to tell them either A, or dad's gone or lie, and that doesn't feel good.

What feels worse than lying is when you tell them the truth and then they leave that stuck and that happened far more than I'd like to admit. Now I tell the truth in five years, so it's a lot easier for them, the customers to stomach. But when you say like you passed a week ago, it just shook things up too much where you're kind of in this debate like, do I tell the truth?

I'm due to mattress sales, so I'm trying to figure out the grew. People have to lay on a bed in front of you, you have to make them comfortable. That does not make them comfortable. So there's some credence to that. The mattress store is interesting because it's retail and a lot of people don't like their beds, [00:15:00] and you can be pretty vocal and learning customer support.

And I'm coming home and thinking about my dad. I never knew the workload he was. Holding on his shoulders. All I did was go in there with my truck, deliver a few beds, get home, make a quick 80, 90 bucks and call it a day. But to think about all the problems at the store that happens in the mattress store, it was kind of crazy like for him to always come home excited to see the boys and to compartmentalize all that so well.

I'm here complaining to my girlfriend at the time and chirping my brothers because my oldest had to go back to Arizona. He works in finance as a firm and you know, kids a house. He had to go back home. And my middle older brother, my older, younger brother rather, because he doesn't have the business bones, so he just does sales.

So I had to run the entire business side to it and there was, [00:16:00] there's a lot of moving pieces. I'm driving home. This is a night where I had a few of his customers and I'm just crying and thinking about him, how much weight he had buried on his shoulders, and just the selflessness of never, just never bringing things home to from work and never asking more, more from us.

I was thinking of my grandparents. They passed when I was an infant and I didn't know them. Is this how my nephew and niece, my brother, my oldest brother's kids, is this how they're gonna grow up to know my dad? Well, this wisdom, virtues strengths, his resilience, how this business was built, all this is gonna be forgotten in time.

And it really didn't sit well with me, I thought. And I remember literally just crying. I probably should not have been driving. And I kept telling myself, I'm gonna write a book. I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna write a book. But then you ask yourself like. I [00:17:00] don't know if I could write a book by myself.

I'm thinking of those great writers that my dad told me about. I don't think I could write a book. No professor has ever given me any like kudos to my great writing. I've always been like you student in writing classes. There's never been, math is different, but writing, no, I've never been a great writer.

I thought maybe I could invite my brothers, my aunt, my uncle. My youngest sister to participate in writing with me and I looked online and there wasn't anything that would formally bring us together under the same roof and help with publishing a book. And I thought, you know, how powerful writing is therapeutically and how powerful it would be to share in short story, all these snips of my dad and my brothers as well, sharing their snips.

I. And us putting together photos into a heart bound, a tangible that I could hand to my future [00:18:00] kids or hand to my nephew and niece. That's what kind of brought me to the idea of Life books, but it's been a while and time taken to, I. Bring everything together from the book to the development to the legal.

It's like a mountain, and then there's another mountain in front of you and another mountain in front of you. There's no going back. There's no way down. I gotta make it to the top and take a helicopter ride out. At this point, it's been a lot. I'm really grateful because the idea has now become reality.

We have my dad's book in production. We have over 28,000 words written in it. And over a hundred photos. My brother's already telling me we gotta do a volume too. He's thinking of more stories add from poker nights to the times at the mattress store, to going skiing to Frisbee football. There's just all these moments, and now it's been a long journey.

But now I'm here on podcasts, sharing about my dad's [00:19:00] book, and just giving respect to his life that he lived and. Knowing that it's going to always be treasured in the family in a new tangible heirloom, it, it means a lot. So I'm pumped. I forgot what the question was. It kind of just went on a tangent. 

Jill: No, that was great.

That actually led right into what I wanted to ask about with your books, because I, the intention is to do this after somebody has already passed away. Is this something that like. My mom's aging. My parents are aging. Could we start it now as a family, while people are still alive and create the book together?

What's the best method, the best way to utilize the product? 

Matt: I think it, I mean, that question just is what, what position you're in, in your life. I think for, for life books, for the launch, we learned during the beta that there are those who want to make a book for their grandparents. So they don't want to do just an individual.

And then there are those who [00:20:00] wanna make a book, like in your case, you know, for their parents that are still alive it. So life books during the beta was just for a loved one. But when we go into launch, actually rather soon, or looking at early May late April, depending on when this podcast comes out, it may already be out.

But for Lifebook, you can make a Lifebook with your loved one. For a loved one or for loved ones, and it wouldn't entail anything differently except for the design of the cover would be a little bit different. Like my dad's book says, you know, his birth date and his passing date, of course, for loved ones still with us.

That part would just be omitted. But for with your loved one, I think especially when I was creating my dad's book, how awesome it would be to have a story written by him or. A video file that he shares put within the book, which is now one of [00:21:00] the new features, is adding video and audio to have my dad's voice, to see him sharing his tale from his point of view.

It makes the book all that more powerful to those who, you know, maybe their parents or their grandparents or their siblings or their partners. They passed away 3, 4, 6, 10 years ago. I don't think there's a time constraint to when you need to write a book. There is that point after loss where everything's just too heavy, way too fresh.

Some can muster the strength to get through that in writing, but I do think there is a point of time where you want to capture those stories, those memories. Utilizing life books is a great way of feeling. The presence of your loved one with you, and remembering there's a big purpose and why to doing this.

One, their story's gonna translate for generations and, [00:22:00] and not just through you telling the tales when you're not there to tell them, for them to still be there. And then for you personally, after a loss, a lot of times. Everyone in the family kinda separates and does their own thing, and the funeral or the memorial was the last time we're all under the same roof again.

Roof and life books gives the family an opportunity to all come under the same roof again and commemorate that loss and celebrate that individual. And it's a really come together experience. And therapeutic as writing is very powerful in terms of those who you know. The passing was a decade ago, and their thought is, I don't know if I'm gonna remember or recollect all the things that I'd want to put in here and enough to write a story.

You'd be surprised your brain is a computer. As soon as you open that file cabinet up, things may not be on your forefront conscious, [00:23:00] but as soon as you start to write literally details, impressions. Corks kinks, just all the dialogue comes back to life. There's no maturity in terms of when you can write.

There may be an infancy, but that's subject to the individual. I think in terms of the why losses emotionally, one of the hardest things, if not the hardest thing you'll ever go through is loss. But what's worse than loss is absence and. Doing anything to preserve their memory and dismiss the thought of absence within the family brings not a sense of closure, but a sense of peace, because I don't think anything can truly bring closure.

Like that's just my opinion. You really get closure when you lose someone you love, but there is peace you can find and there is a difference. Dismissing absence brings peace to your heart because you know, okay. [00:24:00] They're gone, but who they are isn't gone. Who they are will always be in the family and who they are will always lay an imprint.

And what they did and how they lived will always be imparted in the family. For generations, I had this thought that the family is a painting, it's a great painting, and you're continuing to stroke the brushes of the family. Whether it's a vacation, you know, someone got a new job, some got. You know, a new baby in the family, you're continuing to paint this painting, but after a loss, canvas is painted white and the family has to start anew.

It's not that they don't remember what had happened, but you have this whole new like, okay, we're adopting this family entirely new after my dad had passed away and you began your own painting. But I think a great family is a constant renewal of the painting and. Continuing to find the strokes of life and then seeing the past within the [00:25:00] painting life books as a way to continue the painting, how powerful it is to preserve legacy and preserve the wisdom they imparted because we all have to go through this walk of life and knowing about their strengths and their resilience and their cos and metaphors makes you feel.

Better connected to the shared experience you are gonna face. It's an imprint that will always be there. I know they say like you live indefinitely through your children's and those that you have a bit an impact, but that is not to me enough, like that's the bare minimum that, you know, the thought that, okay, I have a bit of my dad in me.

People will say that, and then you have your kid and they have their dad in you, but. You can't really walk back up the family history line. I am really excited for how life books can be utilized in that fashion. To be able to walk back up the history line and know why you are the way you [00:26:00] are and where you came from.

I know there's beautiful stories, not just my family, but in others families too. War heroes, powerful women, powerful partners who have been there and have gone through. The hard parts of life and always end up smiling or the moments that they share. It's a really powerful experience and going through it has been really cathartic for not just being like my siblings and my uncle and it's, it's awesome.

I can't wait to be holding my dad's book now that's in production and going into print. Me and the beta group, the beta group, and I we're all very excited. 

Jill: I'm excited for you because it really does sound beautiful. You mentioned that you could do some videos and audios with a QR code. That would be right in the book.

Yeah. How does that part work? 

Matt: So exactly that. If there's photos and stories, how could we implement video and audio? That was what one professional [00:27:00] user had ask me, and it's really easy. We can host the video and audio on QR and within a story, say it's the wedding day. You could put the wedding video within the story of dad dancing with the bride or if there's any video or audio iPhones now, so we all crazy videos, they may not even be a story worthy in the sense there's no story to this.

That's just great video. Anything that's taken into the Lifebook engine that's not used within the actual stories, whether it's photos, video, or audio, we'll go to the end of the book. And be placed in either the photo gallery or the video and audio gallery, and it'll have a QR two to three sentences of context, because that's what's required to implement a video.

We don't want just a bunch of random QRS and that it'll be who it was submitted by a context and a video, and those QRS can be scanned, watched, and [00:28:00] it adds to the timelessness to the book. It paints the picture even better. There's your. Loved one. There's your dad, there's your mom, there's your sibling in video for, or your children, nephew, niece, to watch and gather who they are and who they were.

Jill: Hmm. I love that. And when people are creating it, they go to your website and just kind of like fill out the information. Is there prompts to maybe. Get them started with like stories or information. How does that process work? I feel like I would be one of those people. I'd be like, I don't even know what to say.

I don't know where to start. Maybe having a prompt of like, what's your favorite story? What's your favorite vacation? I don't know. Something that would maybe get me going might be helpful. 

Matt: Absolutely implemented. Once you get started, there's a begin here button. Just step through and. There's a guide. We call it the Life Books Guide, and there's inspirational topics to go through, whether [00:29:00] it's lessons learned, family gatherings, outdoors, seasonal, and questions to get you started.

Otherwise, you're looking at a blank canvas. And then there's also a story framework section, maybe. You have the idea, but you don't remember how to write, how should it look? How should you separate the paragraphs? Maybe it's a letter to the future. You're writing a family recipe or a song of remembrance or a legacy piece, and it just helps with the structure and knowing, okay, this is the intro, the impact of their life.

Maybe it's a list of ingredients and so forth. The other feature that we have is we found with our beta group, a lot of people love. AI not to write, but to help with the copy editing, because refining your writing does take time. So we have GPT integrated in it where you can highlight what you've written and you can either click, rephrase, or [00:30:00] copy edit the rephrase, which just kind of change up your writing, but not in a way that takes your voice out of place, but in a way that maybe effectively gets rid of double sentences.

Copy editing, which just helps with spelling, grammar, punctuation, and so forth. And these are just tools. We believe strongly that it is important to write and to get your voice out. From my point of view, once you start writing, it's like a good book. It's hard to stop reading. Once you get started writing, you may start with a title and then write about something completely different.

Because that's just where the story takes you and my siblings and I we're trying to commission each other to write certain things because maybe one would know more than another. Commission. Writing's really hard too, because it doesn't really come genuine, but then sometimes it's easy. So it's a creative experience [00:31:00] and there's no blanket way on how to do it.

Lifebook, we have, when you begin a Lifebook, there's a three month contributing period. We give families three months to create their loved one's. Lifebook. The reason why we have a confined space is because unfortunately, if there's no cutoff, we'll never finish. So in a book writing, there's firm cutoffs and we want families to know that, okay, three months to get this book done.

If in the event we don't finish the Lifebook engine allows the families to defer to the next print date. Because we print on a quarterly basis, so if they don't finish, they can defer and request an extension, and then they get almost seven months with the print date lodged in there to finish their loved ones book.

If I, the families don't finish in seven months, that probably won't finish. Yeah, we have to have that cutoff [00:32:00] window. Hosting all that data is rather expensive and it doesn't cost anything for other family members to join. So family members are putting in like 20 minute videos, 400 photo. It's, it becomes a lot for the server.

Mm-hmm. So we ask that we finish the book, and it's also a really powerful aid. A lot of us haven't been in school in a while, so we need to have a little bit of homework. Remember the why, why you're doing it for your loved one, for the next generation, and selfishly for yourself. You get to learn stories of your loved one that you never knew before.

You get to relive those memories that are just beautiful pieces of your life, and collectively it becomes this amazing tribute to that individual. But the prompts and suggestions, all those tools are there just to make the writing experience easy so you can focus on what's important [00:33:00] and that's capturing their story.

Jill: And so if I started to write a story and then your younger sister was like, oh, I wanna add in this part, and then your older brother was like, well, I wanna add this end of that story. Can everybody kind of just like add what they want and take things out? 'cause that seems to me like that might get a little.

Tense, right? Where somebody's like, well, no, that's not how the story was. I wanna put this part in. How does that work? Do we each all get our own separate ways to tell a story or can we edit and change each other's? 

Matt: You definitely can't edit and change each other's. We don't allow people to encroach on others' writings.

I think that's a really sentimental space when you invite, like for seniors or people who are not tech savvy. My uncle who's 77. He needed help. So there's the ability to invite and allow yourself to edit as a lead. The leads have the ability, and the lead would be like myself. I started the book for my dad and [00:34:00] I'm inviting everyone.

I paid for the first book, allowing me to impose my changes, but that's more so for those who need help. Uh, in terms of writing, it's an open canvas. My brother wrote about a mattress store, and I wrote about the mattress store. Two different experiences, two different points of time. There's no redundancy in storytelling, especially in this aspect.

You're getting different perspectives in terms of life books, kind of telling people. Back to the commissioning. We can't ask, you know, this person to, to write this, this person to write that this, it makes it too complicated and it's not that serious in the regards to, this isn't a book that's gonna be published told on Amazon.

This is for your family. Don't think that you have to be a professional writer, you know, caught up in the thoughts of redundancy. There's no redundancy. It's your perspective versus their perspective. And it only enriches the [00:35:00] book to have those shared perspectives. I. But yeah, we definitely don't want people deleting what others have been about their loved one.

That would be how life books literally gets destroyed by customer support. People would not like me too much, just literally if an aunt was writing that. You can't share that. We don't want to be the arbiters of what can go in and outside of our loved ones book, and we hope that everyone just writes respectfully.

You know, we do have an AI system that proofs read for any. Profanity. So we do have some systems in place. We don't want people bashing a loved one that got invited and an X and an X and an X type of thing. Like that's not allowed. Hasn't happened yet in the beta. There was nothing like that that we solved.

So we'd imagine everyone would be respectful in that aspect. We hope we don't have to be writing police. 

Jill: And do you get to see everybody's book? Like is that something where you, as the [00:36:00] creator of Life books, would you see every book that gets designed and created or is it more like they do it, they create it, they order it, and it kind of bypasses you?

Matt: If there's things that are flagged? Maybe it's that, you know, there was two users who wrote, two families who wrote over 40,000 words and they broke the book engine. So I'm with my developer trying to code to get it to structure correctly. Once it goes into the book engine and IT processes as a PDF, life Hooks does.

All the scrapbooking organizes positions, creates the table contents, it creates all the itemized photos and where they're supposed to go in their positions. All the topography handled through our engine. It's not like we don't. Drag and drop and do any photo editing. If we had to do that, it would be very taxing process.

We wouldn't do it. So we have a book engine that does [00:37:00] that for us. In two instances, we had to write more code because they broke the book engine, which was kind of fun. One family wrote 44,000 words and had 160 photos. That was a lot to handle. We've now figured out, and that's what beta's for, figured that out, but mm-hmm.

No, there's no oversight of me on the books I have before for the beta, we did share just in case there were like, okay, is there anything that you want to this PDF? But in most regards, once the book goes into print. The platform, the online platform closes and there is no online PDF. We just by research online obituaries and memorials, they don't get revisited.

Mm-hmm. And we don't wanna become like an online hosting company. And then it takes away from the physical, tangible, the fact that like books comes in print. So once the book goes into print, the platform [00:38:00] closes. Families can always order a copy of their loved one's book if they want another copy.

Additionally, on an anniversary basis, we'll reach out to all those who are in the creative for those wanting to participate. There's a QR code in print on all the books where they can scan it, and they can either order a copy of that exact book because say my aunt wants a copy of my dad's book but didn't get one, she can order a copy or request to contribute.

And that ability to contribute is on the anniversary date. We reach out to everyone and see, maybe there's a volume too. Not everyone got to share in this book. So maybe some want to impart, you know, their stories, their photos, their memories of that loved one, and have their own copy of the life books we allowed to reopen on an anniversary date.

But there's no online PDF because. And that would keep people from the importance of having the tangible and [00:39:00] having that heirloom and the online one, like those hardly get visited. We want it to be a coffee table book one that's always there in the family, just sitting right there near the fireplace, ready to read, ready to chat about.

Jill: And I know you talked when we had talked, I don't know, a couple months ago, I guess it was now, about the quality of the book. Like this isn't like you go to Flickr and you print out one of those little heer things, like you really spent a lot of time designing this to be really high quality and a beautiful coffee table book.

So can you just talk a little bit about that part? 

Matt: Yeah. So people don't know this, but 99% of books that go into print hardcover books. Are buried, poorly built, they use just glue for the binding. So all you have holding the pages together is an adhesive, and it's those books that if you open up all the way, you hear the pages pop.

Mm-hmm. In time of opening and closing pages start [00:40:00] to fall out. I spent 13 months sort sourcing a manufacturer that would take our book into print using a method called section Sound Binding. And. No print shop does this because of the absolute expense and headache that it is to get a print shop that to do this.

But if you think of the yearbook from the 1970s or the cookbook that has been passed down in the family for two, three generations, those books, when they go into print, you know, maybe 2000 books get printed or a thousand books. So they're able to go through this process where they sew the pages together.

I. Because of that, those books last a long time. Any of the print on-Demand books, POD books, those are printed one at a time, and they go through a cheap binding process. They glue the pages together, stick it to the binding, ship it out. Lifebook takes time to [00:41:00] build because all the pages are scored and sewn into sections of 20 at a time.

And that creates something that will live past your life, that creates a book that can be handled and helped by kids and won't get ripped out. And you can feel when you hold a life book. This is a high quality book. This is not a cheap, flimsy, ends up in a cardboard box type of book. This isn't a book you have to be extremely delicate with.

This is a book that you can travel to Europe with, travel across the country with, move to your next house with, and know that it's not gonna break and you're not gonna have to literally see your loved one's. Stories fall out of the book like it's a book built to last. It took me back to the cold calling.

I spent 13 months over 110 phone calls and conversations, NDAs and. Prototypes that were always being sent incorrectly to [00:42:00] get this book built, and that's was one of my first mountains and wanting to quit because I didn't want to do this. If this was gonna be a really cheap book, it just didn't make sense.

Then I'd have to go into print again in 15 years. That's not gonna stand the test of time. I want Life Books our loved one's, books to outlive life books. This is gonna be something that continues to grow even past my time. So. A lot of time spent but worthwhile. And I think that when the beta group and our future users feel their loved ones book, they'll understand why we took this route.

When I tried to find it originally, I was getting quoted like 900 US, 1100 us. These crazy prices where I'm not gonna sell a book for 1500. Like that's crazy. Yeah, finding a print shop that believed in our story was a huge part of getting this app, and I'm extremely grateful for them. 

Jill: Well, I am so excited to see them when they're all [00:43:00] completed.

Why don't you just take a few minutes, tell people where they can find you. 'cause I think this episode, I'm trying to remember when it's gonna come out. I think it'll probably be sometime in May. So I think you'll officially be launched and all that good stuff to tell people where they can find you. 

Matt: You can find us online@lifebook.io or on our instagram@lifebook.io as well.

And if you have a loved one or a friend and you know that they're experiencing hardship or you're going through a loss, I applaud you for taking up Lifebook or sharing Lifebook because it's a powerful, purposeful, cathartic experience that brings the family together and. Preserves the memory of their loved one in a timeless way, and I'd really love to have you part of the experience.

So if you have any questions, feel free to write to our Instagram, or if you'd like to email [00:44:00] mattJacobson@lifebook.io, um, I'm full of answers, so thank you, Joe. 

Jill: Well, wonderful. And I'll put all the links right in the show notes so people can easily find it. Thank you so much, Matt. This was really lovely. I enjoyed hearing more about your father and then also getting to hear about your product again.

I think it's beautiful. I think there's a real need for it. Thank you. In my next episode, I talk with Diane Cordell, a retired crime scene investigator whose decades long career in law enforcement gave her a front row seat. To the fragility of life. Diane shares how working countless death scenes shaped her perspective on mortality, especially during her time in homicide where she witnessed sudden loss suicides and the heartbreak of notifying families.

As one of the first women in our office, she helped build systems of support and crisis management, always leading with compassion and fairness. Her stories reflect the reality of how death affects families, how closure supports healing, and the importance of honest conversations about [00:45:00] dying. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting.

Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated. Please consider subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review. Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others. The podcast also offers a paid subscription feature that allows you to financially support the show.

Your contribution will help keep the podcast advertisement free, whether your donation is large or small, every amount. It's valuable. I sincerely appreciate all of you for listening to the show and supporting me in any way you can. You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one-time contribution.

Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death. Clearly.