Transforming Funeral Planning and Support with Give Willow

In this podcast episode, Janet Turkula and Ryan Olivera, the founders of Give Willow, a platform designed to support families during funeral planning by allowing the community to contribute financially. Janet shares her personal story of losing her father at 21 and the struggle her family faced with unexpected funeral expenses, which inspired her to create Give Willow. 

The platform works like a wedding registry, enabling families to list specific items needed for a funeral, making it easier for friends and family to offer meaningful support. Ryan, who specializes in tech startups, discusses his initial discomfort with the topic of death but explains how working with Janet and understanding her vision changed his perspective. 

They both aim to change societal attitudes towards death, making it a more open and community-supported process. The platform also provides resources to help with the often-overwhelming administrative tasks following a death. The episode emphasizes the importance of planning for end-of-life and reducing the stigma around discussing death.

• Janet's Personal Story and Inspiration
• The Birth of Give Willow
• Ryan's Journey and Partnership
• How Give Willow Works
• Future Goals and Vision
• The Cost of Dying and Unclaimed Bodies
• Personal Reflections on Death and Grief
• The Importance of Planning for Death
• Conversations with Children About Death
• Encouraging End-of-Life Planning
• Creating a Platform for End-of-Life Planning
• Changing the Stigma Around Death
• Celebration of Life vs. Traditional Funerals

 info@givewillow.com 

Ryan@givewillow.com 

Website: https://givewillow.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/givewillow/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@givewillow

Transcript

Janet: [00:00:00] We change the stigma as a society. We raise awareness that death is expensive. It's inevitable. No one escapes it, and it's something we should learn more about and prepare for. Change the stigma of being quiet and pushing things under the rug. Whenever somebody passes. 

Jill: Welcome back to seeing Death clearly.

I'm your host, Jill McClennen, 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, I talk with Janet Turkula and Ryan Olivera, the co-founders of Give Willow a platform that helps families get real support. When planning a funeral, Janet shares how losing her father at 21 [00:01:00] and facing the financial stress that came with it inspired her to create something better. Give Willow works kind of like a wedding registry where friends and family can contribute directly to what's actually needed, whether that's a service, an item, or a meal.

Ryan who comes from the tech world, talks about how this project shifted his own relationship with death and showed him the importance of making these conversations more open and natural. Together, they're changing the way we think about death, bringing compassion, community and practicality to a process that so many people struggle through alone.

Thank you for joining us for this conversation. Welcome, Ryan and Janet to the podcast. I know Ryan, we've actually met in person. We have a mutual friend, Chelsea, and both of you just had babies recently, right? Your wife just had a baby. 

Ryan: Yeah, about three weeks ago. 

Jill: Congratulations. I got to see Chelsea and the baby yesterday over Zoom.

I was so excited. I missed the little fuzzy heads and the smuggles and all that good stuff. 

Ryan: Cuddles are the [00:02:00] best. 

Jill: The cuddles are the best. Janet, we have not officially met yet, but I know Ryan told me a little bit when we met about. You and how the two of you connected and what you're working on together.

Thank you so much for joining me this morning. If you wanna start us off, just tell us a little bit about who both of you are, if you wanna share where you come from, how old you are, anything like that. I 

Janet: am Janet Turla. I am a mom, a wife, and the founder and CEO of Give Willow. So my story starts when my dad passed away when I was 21.

He is a blue collar man and a really good father. He died suddenly and we had to go to the hospital and figure out all of the things that happened after somebody passes away. And, you know, being a kid myself, just outta college, my brother and sister weren't far in front of me. They were a little bit older.

Than I was and [00:03:00] we were left with all of the things that come after death. The financial piece, the ultimate, do you wanna. Have a traditional burial. Do you wanna have a cremation? Everything was thrown at us right after my dad passed. It was tragic. It was really sad. We were kids. We should have been doing other things, not planning our dad's funeral.

He was a single father at that time, and we had no will. There was not a lot as far as finances go with my dad. We definitely learned to stretch a dollar throughout life after. That whole experience. I went on with life. I got married, I had children. I started a career and noticed within my thirties that my friends were losing family members and friends.

Not all I could say was, how can I help? Mm-hmm. I. Thought, this [00:04:00] is so silly that all I can come up with is flowers. And so I remember in 2017 specifically that I got online and I thought, wow, there's gotta be another way to support my friend. Instead of sending her flowers, because I know they need money.

I scrubbed the web and I'm like, how is this not a thing? I lost my dad in 2010 and there's still nothing out there that can facilitate this in a nicer way, and there was nothing. So I ultimately started sending Venmo. To friends and family who would lose people because I thought it was just so senseless to send flowers and assume that they needed flowers because I myself knew that I did not need flowers that expensive, you know, rack up whenever you're bearing somebody.

Oftentimes people lose a friend or family member suddenly, and that was our case. Time went on and I finally decided to quit my job and start give Willow. Of [00:05:00] course, there's a lot of other things that happened, you know, during that time how, you know, I, I don't know how to build, build a website. I don't know how to build the tech behind this.

So I had to do a lot of r and d and just really immerse myself in the tech world, which I was not familiar with at the time. A huge learning curve, and that's kind of how I met Ryan. He and I were roommates at the time, an app called Roomster. He was looking for a room, and I owned a home in. Philly. It turned out that he and I were both very much into tech startups.

I had been going to all of the Tech Philly events and trying to learn as much as I could about the space because I quit my nine to five to create this dream, this venture, this change. In the funeral industry. Ryan and I collaborated on so many things, but we had different ventures at the time. He was my soundboard and would guide me.

Come to some of these events with me, vice versa. I was his soundboard listening to [00:06:00] his pitches for his ventures at two in the morning prepping. So that's where our story began. Ryan, I'll let you take it from there. 

Ryan: Yeah, so. I guess from there, Janet and I met in that 2018 range, and like she said, we were both doing our ventures, collaborating, helping each other, right?

Because obviously doing startups, there's no playbook, right? Where do we go from here? And it's scary, exciting, and all the emotions. We were really each other's crutch and assistant throughout that journey. And from the 2018, you know, I was continuing to do, you know. My things and my ventures and Janet continue to push on, give Willow, but we stayed connected.

Whether she gave me a call or I gave her a call, I'm like, Hey, what do you think about this feedback on whatever We still. Stayed very much vested in each other's ventures and life and progress leading up until 2004. Finally, she convinced me 2024. 

Janet: 2024. 

Ryan: Yeah, I, I [00:07:00] officially said, you know, screw it. Let's do this.

What held me back for the longest time was the space itself for me, death. Feels uncomfortable. I would go to family or friend's, funerals, and candidly, I wouldn't want to go. It just felt too uncomfortable. After learning more about the space, the gap, the opportunity to help people, and what Janet's vision and mission was, I had the realization like, no, screw this.

We should do this, and I want to help. I think there's value I can bring in. Screw it. Let's do it. Let's do it all in from that point forward. It's been a rollercoaster ride, but I'm excited for what we're doing today and what the future holds because there is such an opportunity. I guess I jumped ahead and around the journey.

Just brief background about myself too, because I know I probably skipped that in my thirties. Tech startup, passionate about it since I was in my teens playing with computers, rebuilding them, reprogramming them, doing websites, done a lot of different ventures in the past, a lot in the local [00:08:00] marketing as it relates to Give Willow.

I'm the tech guy, the tech nerd, helping give Willow and Janet navigate the journey as we continue to build up this mission. 

Janet: We continued to stay in touch and I was desperately. Searching for a partner. We were pioneering this thing, had it built out with our dev team, and it looked beautiful. I knew that Ryan was there and working on his ventures, and I kept planting the seeds the way it happened and the timing.

It was serendipitous. Because, you know, he, he just had gotten married, he had, you know, had a baby. I had just moved cross country and had we worked on this venture a year prior, probably wouldn't have turned out the way it has turned out. It just was not. At the right timing, you know, four years ago or three years ago.

The timing of him stepping in in 2024 was right when I needed him. And since then, we've been collaborating and making magic [00:09:00] happen every single day with our site since our partnership. It's been great and a really fun journey. Seeing the families we have helped so far is so gratifying. Remembering in 2018 when he and I were just starting and dreaming and visioning our futures in the tech world and the tech space, me and the funeral tech space, I could have never imagined today that we would be here actually helping people.

That's really cool. 

Jill: Yeah, that is very cool. And I know Ryan had told me a little bit about. What it is that you do, and I believe you described it almost like a wedding registry, but for a funeral. And I was like, that is such an interesting idea because people really don't have any idea how expensive all of these things are when it comes to end of life.

So can you tell us more, other than what I just said about it being like a wedding registry, what it actually is? That you do at Give Willow and how 

Janet: people use the [00:10:00] services? Sure. So we're a platform where community, friends, family, neighbors can come together and contribute towards somebody's funeral.

When I lost my father, if we had give Willow at the time, I could have created a registry of items that would've helped honor my dad. So a casket, travel expenses to and from Denver for me, catering, a little banquet, music, flowers, all of those things would've helped me immensely at the time. Today, we can honor others.

By creating this registry, like you said, a wedding registry, we have no issues spending a hundred dollars to buy a new welcome rug for our friends who are just getting married and celebrating that monumental time in their life. This platform gives us a way that we can honor friends and family, celebrate a life lived [00:11:00] and release a little bit of that burden on our friends and family that we love so much.

Ryan: Yeah, and what I love about it too, even from the, you know, obviously I don't have a similar experience as Janet of losing my father and having to navigate the journey of not only. Loss, but also the financial piece. And what I love about Give Willow is it gives the opportunity for the family member to list the items that they need help for, right?

Different from GoFundMe where you just throw, Hey, we need $10,000. I feel so impersonal, like. Just throwing a random number out. And what I love about Give Willow is from the family side, it says, we're not just pulling this number out of our tush. I'm saying tush because I have a 3-year-old caskets. The casket cost is $2,500 or more.

Right? Depending on what you pick. And hey, there's the funeral service, there's the plot of land, there's the, there's. You know, the, the earn or, or the vault or, you know, there's all these different aspects. And I think what I love about it [00:12:00] is, to your point, Jill, it raises that transparency of, yeah, this can be very expensive and hey, here's the items that we need help with, right?

We're not making this up. This is where we want. And then from the community side, what I love about it is, you know, it, you want to show up for your family, you wanna show up for your friends, and. It makes it a little bit more personal. One thing I think about is with my friends' parents drove me to soccer back in the day.

I like, oh, you know what? Like it almost like full circle. Hey, you know what, I'm gonna contribute to the transportation costs. 'cause it kind of feels, you know, like the full circle. So it gives you, even as a community member to kind of show where you wanna show that support on the different items, whatever it might be.

And just like an easier way to support. 'cause I think like what we've talked about, even. And leading up to this is like you want to support your friends today. There's not that many good ways to do it, and I love how this makes it a little bit more graceful. It makes it a little bit more easy to [00:13:00] give that support 

Janet: the way that we've designed it.

This is for everybody. You can use the platform without putting any registry items at all. People can contribute towards a cause. We're not saying people need this. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't, but it, it shows others a way that they can support you. Whenever words are really tough at this time, you know, a, a lot of people would come up to me and say, we loved your dad so much.

Is there anything that you guys need? What can we do for your family? And there was no vehicle that existed at the time that I could just, instead of verbally saying, well. We need help with the casket. There's no way to say that in a packed, full way. We hope that Give Willow can do this. Just really let others know, Hey, this is how you can help and show support.

Jill: And it's all done through an app. So I would [00:14:00] just download the app onto my phone and use it that way. Or how's the tech part of it? Actually work. I'm not a tech person at all, so the thought of creating an app is way beyond me. But how does that part of it work? 

Ryan: So it's website give vola.com. Some of the parts you mentioned, like you're not a tech person.

A lot of people aren't tech people. So we tried to make this as simple and easy as possible from every screen, every word. You know, you go to give will.com get started here. And we really handhold, there's a term that we use. Every single day with our team handholding, we try to embody that in how users, families, and community interact with.

Give Willows, you go on it, you create a registry. Honestly, we, we've made it so streamlined where even can pre-select some registry items that are common for most people, where I wanna say, take like five minutes or less, provide some basic information, select the items that you need support with, with the, you know, according.

[00:15:00] Amounts that you need support on for each of those items, and click post and share it. We don't want it to be something that you have to keep on checking. We want you to. Create it, set it, and forget it in a lot of regards. Go back to focusing on what really matters. This will run on its own. Once you create it and share it, the community will come out.

They'll share it with their friends. You'll share it with your community, and just try to make it as simple as possible. 

Janet: It's not just a registry either. We provide resources. One thing that lacked when I lost my father was resources. I didn't know the steps of what it entails to bury somebody because they hadn't gone through that process before.

And then the aftermath of the will and settling my father's estate, there was no handholding with that. So I think with Give Willow another thing that I love so much and another thing we're methodical with is. Really getting into the experience that I had when I lost my dad walking with my sister and brother.

What do you remember? What was [00:16:00] hard about this? And really taking that experience and building it into this site. Everything that I didn't have, we've put in this site. 

Jill: That's a great way to do it. I'll be married for 20 years this year, so it's been a long time since I did my wedding registry. I remember we registered at a certain store and picked items.

But it was at that one store. So how does this work? Are you connected to casket vendors or is it more like, here's the individual items, people give money. And then purchase the casket or purchase the plot, like how's that part of it work? Because I'm like, how? That's a lot. Then navigate, correct? Yeah. 

Janet: Oh, we want it to be as simple as possible for the person who is mourning or planning this funeral.

Prices are all over the place. A casket in Mississippi is not the same price as a casket in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's just, it's just not. So to simplify things. Our registry, you [00:17:00] can put whatever price after talking to the funeral home or a guesstimate, we give the user a guesstimate of average national funeral prices and that kind of navigates them on where they wanna set that price point at some of the folks too will.

Work directly with a funeral home and say, okay, I want this casket and it's 3,200, and they'll put that in the registry price so you can tailor that towards your needs. We've made it really simple with a traditional burial and a cremation, we've hand selected some items that would be. Part of a traditional burial, casket, catering, flowers, et cetera.

And then same thing for cremation. We have a create your own. We know that everybody's funeral or memorial won't be the same. One person wants a really elaborate funeral and somebody just wants a little memorial on a mountain. Mountainside can be tailored to anybody's needs. 

Ryan: Yeah. And from the [00:18:00] registry side, as it works today, it, it all goes to the organizer or rover's organizing it.

So it's not streamlining, not selecting vendors and the payments aren't going there. But that is something that we're closely looking at is, you know, as we continue to challenge of how can we make this easier for the family, you know, and less decisions, more streamlined. That's something that we're looking at is how can we, for items that we know.

Are going to a trusted party, potentially funeral home or other, you know, vendors in that sense just helping where they don't have to take the money. Then separately pay them, and if there's an opportunity to help streamline that, that's something that we're looking at. But as it stands today, it all goes to that family and they can figure out how to disperse those funds as needed.

Jill: Yeah, that seems like a lot of work, finding vendors, especially like you said, it depends on where you live. I guess some things like urns, you could probably find a couple of trusted vendors for urns, but this is a [00:19:00] big project you're working on. What are your goals long term? When you think five or 10 years from now, what do you see Give Willow looking like?

Janet: I see it similar to as it is today. Like Ryan said, we're adding iterations that the ease of use will be so much better. The long-term goal is that we change the stigma as a world, as a society, we raise awareness that death is expensive, it's inevitable. No one escapes it, and it's something we should learn more about and prepare for change.

The stigma of being quiet and pushing things under the rug whenever somebody passes, using this platform for good. Being there as a community when somebody passes and making it just as acceptable as a baby registry or a wedding registry, we wanna see that, give Willow name and hear that funeral registry and say, oh yeah, our neighbor down the street passed away.

Let's get [00:20:00] on her, give Willow registry and make sure that their family is taken care of. That's my long-term goal. I would be honored and thrilled to help anybody in any way not to feel the way that I felt when I just lost the most important person in my life at 21. So, yeah. 

Ryan: And if I were to piggyback off of Janet, you know where I think we see this as, you know, losing someone, there's so many activities and tasks that you have to do, and it's very disjointed and.

It's hard not, while you're not grieving, you know, let alone grieving. And I think where we'll be in, in five to 10 years is we're gonna simplify that. You know, and, and the way that we look at the world is we've started with the registry because that feels like the most impactful piece. It's all about planning and how can we simplify and elevate the conversation around planning After the funeral, there's a bunch of.[00:21:00] 

Admin tasks, calling banks, calling Social Security Office, getting all of those things. The challenge we're undertaking over the next five years is how can we just make that a little bit easier, simplify it with this platform. You know, you start with give will you end with Give Willow and it's, you know, you focus on, again, like you focus on what really matters.

We will handle it from here where we can. So a little abstract, but that's kind of where we wanna be. The journeyman, handhold people from wherever they are. Through the whole process from start to finish, 

Jill: we really don't do well planning for it and preparing ourselves and our loved ones. I try not to like have any judgment, right, because it's just kind of the culture that we grew up in.

But it does leave so many people rather than being able to grieve and be in. What they need to go through. They're so focused on all these other things we could plan ahead of time. If I knew that I was ill, could I start a give [00:22:00] Willow account and start putting things down and asking people to start paying towards it so that when I'm gone, my family doesn't have to worry about it.

Dying is very expensive and you don't have a choice. If somebody dies, you can't just be like, I don't know, just like do with 'em what you want. Like that's not how it works. You have to do something. But actually, I guess that's not really true. There are, especially now that people are having more and more financial strain.

That's one of the things that I've heard is happening more is unclaimed bodies at hospitals because people are like, I can't afford to do anything. I'm just gonna leave my loved one there, which is terrible. That is such a terrible choice for people to have to make to say, I can't afford this. I'm gonna have to take out loans or go into debt to even do the cheapest option, and so I'm just gonna leave 'em at the hospital in the morgue.

That is terrible. So it does happen, [00:23:00] unfortunately, but it is expensive. 

Janet: Those are things that honestly keep me up at night. It's just horrible that we aren't doing better in a world that we have technology at our fingertips, and we figured so much out that we have not figured out this piece. So that's why we're here.

We're figuring it out. 

Jill: Yeah, same with me. A lot of people that are in the same space as me, you know, we're just trying to change the way that folks die because, yeah, we can do it better. I think a lot of people are like you, Ryan, where at the beginning you kind of said. I avoided it because it made me uncomfortable.

I understand that it makes people uncomfortable, but avoiding it is not gonna protect us from these things. It's just gonna make it even harder. So are you better now with funerals and death than dying and grief since you've been working on this project? 

Ryan: You know, I'm not gonna say I'm a hundred percent 180 flipped, but yes, I [00:24:00] think.

What it took for me was just to understand the process behind it and the challenges with it, and you know, giving me personally from a philosophical perspective, like death is a natural part. It says natural as birth. And I think personally this has forced me to kind of reflect more intentionally and then just understanding the space.

So I'm not gonna say, Hey, I'm looking forward to going to a funeral. But by understanding more, and this is, I think, part of why we just need to elevate the conversation that we're talking about. Like the more you know, the less foreign it feels, the less uncomfortable it feels. I think that's part of what helped me get over that uncomfortable feeling is understanding more about.

Everything around it. So yeah, I am more comfortable with it. I think I have to be, but I am naturally now. And it's still a journey though, in some regards. 

Janet: I think the other thing with Ryan too, he's desensitized because I cry so much. [00:25:00] The storytelling in this business is really hard because I have to relive my dad's story, and you would think that it would get easier.

It kind of is, but I still have to replay that story in my head. And so you can imagine the countless calls that we've been on, but I'm explaining our story and my dad and who he was. Sometimes I tell a little bit more and sometimes I cry, and Ryan just has to hear about this kind human that passed away on a bed in front of his kids.

He took his last breath. And I think that helped Ryan really understand the gravity too, that, Hey, do you know me? I'm a real person. I'm your buddy. My dad died and it was awful. And he heard that story over and over again, and when I cry, he's there. So I think, I don't know. Ryan has that helped a little bit.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, definitely has. It definitely has. Like it brings that like it's an emotional topic, right? It's like an emotional kind [00:26:00] of. So, yeah, the story, I think I could probably tell your story with my eyes closed, you know, spun around multiple times. Yeah, 

Janet: just putting ourselves in that story. And now that we're parents too.

We're living, we're having children. Death is not escapable. Raising that awareness, changing the stigma. Making this more community friendly talk and something we plan and talk about. I think all of those things are so important. It's our mission. 

Jill: Yeah. It does change things when you're a parent and you start imagining what it would be like for your children, or God forbid as a parent, if people whose children have died, it's like you can't help but imagine that being you.

The. Point that I try to get people to understand is that if that is the path that I am destined to be on, I don't know if I believe in destiny, but if that is the path that I'm [00:27:00] gonna die when one of my children is 21, or God forbid one of my children is gonna die, avoiding thinking about it, avoiding talking about it with my husband, with my children, with the people around me, is not gonna keep me safe.

It's just gonna make that experience even harder for me. If we have to go through it. And you know, my daughter, she's funny 'cause again, she's the 11-year-old. I talk about death a lot in our house. I mean, it's kind of hard to avoid it when you're in my house. About a year ago, she started really giving me a hard time about being older than her friend's moms.

'cause I'm 46. She's 11. And she was like, oh, and you're just so old. You're so old. And I was like, Hey, what? What is going on with this? It was just weird to me. 'cause I was like, why is she all of a sudden doing this? And then one day she finally. It just means you're probably gonna die before they are parents will, and it means, I'm gonna lose you earlier because I was 35 when I had her.

I could have been 25 like some of her friend's parents. [00:28:00] Once I realized that that's where this kind of dislike of me being so old came from. I was like, oh, well, I mean, yes, but we don't know for sure. So now her thing is she figured out the math where it's like she could live to be 85 and I could live to be 120, and then we could die at the same time.

I'm like, that's probably not gonna happen. But it's adorable. At the same time, I don't have a crystal ball. I can't see when I'm going to die. I can't help her get over that fear, but I can talk to her about it. And the thing that I always say to her is that no matter what happens, no matter when I die, I will always be with you.

You'll always have me with you. You're always gonna have our memories. You're always gonna have a part of me. You know, I have that conversation with her and. Those are the kinds of conversations that I think when I am gone, she's gonna look back at, those are the meaningful conversations. That's when you connect deeply with [00:29:00] people is when we talk about these hard topics, that's when you get the really good stuff.

But most of us shy away from it because yes, it sometimes makes me a little uncomfortable. Even me as okay as I am with death. The thought that I might die when my kids are young. That does bother me. But it also. Is part of somebody's reality. I mean, we don't have control over it. People die literally every day.

You just gotta live life the best that you can while you're here and connect as much as you can with your loved ones so that when you are gone, they have that from you, not the distracted mom or dad constantly working and on their phone. So it's changed the way that I live my life for sure. Being okay with death.

Janet: Yeah. I love that you are. Open to having that kind of conversation with an 11-year-old because you are right. You have no idea when any of us are going to pass. If there's anything I learned from this, [00:30:00] um, not just my dad's experience, but actually creating these registries. I realize I just went on a trip with my husband and my kiddos stayed here.

We didn't have an updated will, so I emailed Ryan and my sister and I CC'd grandma. I'm like, Hey, my husband and I are out of town. We're flying just in case. These are my wishes and this is what I would like. And I made sure to add Ryan on there because I said, can you also create a registry for June and LEF in our Honor, saying what an epic life we had and making sure they're okay for school and all of those sorts of things because they're so young right now and we didn't update that will.

So my thought is just like yours, that we have no idea. When it's going to happen and we should prepare as much as we can. Also, I think Ryan thought I was a little crazy when I did that and didn't wanna email me back. It's like, okay, thumbs up. 

Jill: Yeah. My friends think I'm crazy too, and it's fine. When I [00:31:00] do end of life care planning with people, I'll say to them, there's a good chance that you'll never need to have the answers to a lot of these questions, and that's okay too.

But it's better to have the answers. Then to not know and then need it. 

Janet: Yeah. Hopefully this is the solution. Our goal as founders, like this is the solution. We're creating a platform for everyone. This is our solution and this is what we've come up with from my personal experience and Ryan's tech background.

This is our solution to all of these problems that we're talking about right now. 

Ryan: Yeah. And Jill, where you're talking about the planning, you might not even use it. One thing we talk about, which I draw a similarity to, is with funerals, we plan excessively for weddings. We plan excessively for babies. Why wouldn't we do the same for this grand event?

Whether you need it now, or like you said, you might not [00:32:00] even need to think about all these plans based on when things actually happen, but why wouldn't you plan? Why wouldn't you plan it? And that's actually started getting me to poke my parents on like, Hey, you know, we should think about this. And they're getting more open to it 'cause I'm being persistent with it.

But yeah, just the, the planning resonates well a lot with me. 

Jill: And that's good. Poke your parents a little bit because a lot of the older generation actually seems to be the ones that resist this the most in my experience. And I guess that's partially just how they were raised. It's partially the fact that they kind of know they're getting closer to the end, and so it maybe forces them to face it, but.

I just worked with a family recently where it was a mother and a father, and one of the children that is their advanced healthcare proxy. So like the person that has to make the decisions, if one of them is gone and the other one can't speak for themselves, the child is the one that contacted me.

Because they were like, I need to [00:33:00] really have a conversation and I can't just have the conversation with my parents. So we went through a plan together and I asked all the questions that I have in my plan. We had a conversation. It was the three of us, but now we're gonna have the whole family conversation, get all the siblings on, and the parents and me, and we're gonna talk about it.

One of the things they said afterwards that I always take as a compliment. Is it wasn't as scary and overwhelming as they thought it was gonna be, that having me have the conversation with them made it easy and I asked a lot of questions they would've never thought of, which led to them talking about things they would've never talked about.

It's gonna possibly prevent. When if something were to happen, the siblings from fighting with each other. Anytime you talk to anybody that works at end of life, there's actually like a nickname for like the daughter from California is what they call the sibling that swoops in from somewhere else and all of a sudden wants to take over.[00:34:00] 

The healthcare decisions and all these other things, but they've never been around for the last couple years. They have no idea what anybody wants, but all of a sudden they like are up in this business trying to make decisions and it causes so much stress and anxiety for families that we could avoid if we just would have this conversation.

It's not as hard as we think it's going to be once we start it. I think the fear leading up to it is worse than actually having the conversation. 

Ryan: Totally get that. In your experiences, do you see that this younger generation is more open to talking about it in the planning? Like with the example of the family you just mentioned?

Are you starting to see more of that? 

Jill: The younger generations are definitely more willing to talk about it. And again, even younger than me, 'cause I'm like 46. I got friends that are my age that I'm like, do you have a plan in place? And they're like, oh, no, no, I don't need that yet. I'm only in my forties.

I'm like, people die in their forties all the time. This is not that [00:35:00] uncommon. So even my generation, there's a little bit of a. Resistance to it, but younger people are more open to it and they're like, well, yeah, of course I need to have these things in place. Who cares if I'm in my twenties? The first time I ever got into place, my husband and I were in our twenties.

It was before we got married. And Te Shiva was a big story in the news. She had been kept alive. Her husband was like, this isn't what she wants. And her parents were like, yes it is. And I was like, Nope. Don't want that happening. We're not married yet. So legally you really have no say. So we did our own versions of advanced healthcare plans way before I even knew what these things were.

Hmm. Because I was like, Nope, I don't want that. And you're the only person that I trust. To make the decisions. So like, but again, I'm weird. Like so I think there is more people though in their twenties that are doing it. A lot of people that are my age now are gonna start trying to gently nudge their parents [00:36:00] because a lot of us are sandwich generation, where we're watching our parents get into their eighties and we still have 11 year olds.

I am not able to easily care for one of my parents because I still have children I need to take care of. And so I need to know what my parents would want and what's important to them. If God forbid, something were to happen suddenly, and I'm at the hospital and doctors are asking me, well, what does she want?

Well, I don't know 'cause we never talked about it. So I think more people my age are starting to kind of push the parents a little bit. We might need to gently nudge them and say, no, this is really important. We need to do this. We need to have this conversation. 

Janet: I know this sounds silly, but we think about our parents adopting something like Uber, right?

The cell phone, getting a car to your door. It sounds bizarre, but comparing us to an Uber, it's just a new [00:37:00] way 

Jill: of thinking. Why don't you tell us, Ryan, where people can find you, the website, do you have social media, anything like that, that people can reach out and find out more information or connect with you if they want to.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. So you can find our website@givewillow.com and that has a bunch of our information where you can create a registry, the resources that we started talking about and, and everything in between. We're also on Instagram and TikTok. The handles are Give Willow, so it should be easy to, easy to find there.

And then if you do have any questions, feel free to reach out to info@givewillow.com. We're here to help. If we don't have the answers or resources, we. Have a community that can connect you with the right people. So those are the main three channels. We will be having a YouTube channel as well, coming soon with more video content.

You know, talking about the younger generation, trying to make the content meet people where they are. People prefer more visuals than audio or reading. We're gonna have some resources on there as well. 

Jill: Yeah. And now I'm curious 'cause I have TikTok and [00:38:00] YouTube and all the social medias. How do you talk about these things without it sounding?

Because I do think some people immediately shut down as soon as they come across one of my videos. I'm trying to now change the messaging that you will live the rest of your life better if you prepare for the end. Rather than like scaring people of like, if you don't do this, you're gonna have a terrible death.

Which is also kind of true, but people don't really wanna hear that. So what kind of video content do you create that does not just scare people away, or maybe it does still scare people away and you're working on the same problem? I, 

Ryan: it, it's definitely imbalance or a needle to thread to say the least.

The ways that we're trying to do it. One, there's the education piece, which. Can feel morbid sometimes, or sometimes we're trying to get that like aha, like, oh wow, I did not know that. So that's one angle. We're trying to keep it light. Some new videos that we have in the key, we haven't released them yet is, you know, [00:39:00] having a little bit more of a fun spin on it, if that makes sense.

Like, hey, what type of burial, uh, celebration of life fits you? Like, are you more of like the coastal grandma or are you more of the, you know. And just trying to have a little bit more fun with it because I think. If we take it too seriously, people get turned off. And while it is somewhat of a serious topic, it doesn't have to be a hundred percent serious, right?

We can have fun with this. What do you want your celebration of life to be like? Do you want to have it at a park brewery? And I think by raising those fun aspects of it, a rager party with everyone, you know, live band, and I know some of my friends, I've said that in the past, trying to bring those more fun aspects into it.

Is something that we're trying to do where it doesn't have to feel so morbid. Yes, there is a serious and maybe an uncomfortable side to it, but there's also some like really fun, positive angles of of it. So we're trying to thread that needle. We're just. Candidly, we're just getting started on that journey, so I'm sure we're gonna be learning some lessons that you've maybe already [00:40:00] learned, but yeah, I totally see what you're saying.

Jill: Yeah. I have a Facebook group end of Life Clarity Circle, and every day I post a different question. And actually yesterday's question was something about, would you prefer a traditional funeral or a celebration of life? Almost everybody. Said they'd rather have a celebration of life. And some people talked about what they wanted.

Some people shared stories of some that they'd actually been to, even the ones where people would do it before they died because they knew that they were getting closer to death and they were like, I'm gonna do this. Before I died, one woman said they even gave their mom a prom. She never went to her prom, so they gave her a prom before she died, and she shared a picture of her mom dressed up in her gown with a prom queen sash, and the whole thing.

There's so many really cool things that we could do that most people honestly want, if you were to ask them, most people really don't want the traditional funeral. Mm-hmm. But we just kind of don't know it. Maybe it's like. [00:41:00] Our families are not comfortable. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm so glad that you are in this space of trying to make it a little bit different, a little bit easier, and allowing people to have what they really want for their celebration of life, or if they do want a traditional funeral, just making that cost a little bit easier on people.

It is really expensive. You 

Ryan: don't know what you don't know. So if we can help elevate the things that at least people can be thinking about, I think that's often the win. In our eyes. 

Jill: Thank you so much for joining me. We'll catch up with Janet. Unfortunately, we did lose her at the end. This was awesome, Ryan, thank you.

I look forward to potentially working together more of the future. If people are interested in collaborating, they can reach out to you. 

Ryan: Just reach out, you know, either to info@givewillow.com or you know, I'll even share my email, ryan@givewillow.com as well. We are building a community of funeral homes, doulas, nurses, and all different types of people.

We are [00:42:00] always open to collaborating. We're trying to bring everyone together and I think we all have the same general missions. We can join forces. We're all about that. 

Jill: Thank you so much. This was a pleasure. 

Ryan: Absolutely. Thank you, Joe. 

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