 Hello and welcome to this edition of quality of life. I'm your host Dave Augustine today We're going to talk about end-of-life planning and what's all involved with that Joining us today from Zimmer Westview home and Ballhorn chapels is Mark Zimmer and Pam Burkle Welcome to the show. Thanks Dave Just to start off with some of your backgrounds mark Could you give us a background and how long you've been in this type of business how you got started and well I've Most recently celebrated my 38th year as a licensed funeral director back in the mid 70s. I went to school in Chicago and and attended a school of mortuary science and and after I got out I worked as a funeral director in Davenport, Iowa for about six years and moved to Howard's Grove in 1983 and Have been in the community 33 years already One of the best moves I ever made. I know I've known you as long as I can remember because that's where I grew up, too As well, so you're making me feel old Dave. Well Pam how about you? Well, I am new with Ballhorn chapels and Zimmer Westview But I have been working the pre-planning funeral side and working with families for over seven years I am a licensed insurance agent Which is how we fund the funerals at the funeral home and I'm also a certified pre-planning consultant. Okay Getting into it, you know you talk about pre-planning. When is a good time to really start thinking about you know planning for When it's that time Well, one of the things I've learned is You're never too young to die So you're never really too young to plan When I talk to families and I do speaking engagements, I will tell people Anytime you're over 18. You should there's just certain things you should do and taking care of this in case an accident Happens at a young age. It's very helpful to the family. Okay. I've I've experienced over the years that Whenever a couple whether they're younger or older come in and sit down and discuss Final arrangements with myself or with Pam Their their adult children are always especially grateful because there's a lot of parts to the planning that When you Have to ask an adult child What was your grandmother's maiden name and they don't remember or when when was your parents anniversary? Things that are necessary for doing an obituary or possibly some vital statistic information By being able to meet with the couple that are planning we can go through those fine details and get that on record so that The kids or the children don't have to worry about These things that are fine parts of a funeral planning And it probably is a lot easier for the family to pre-plan it So you're not also grieving at the time when it happens or trying to come up with you know the arrangement So I'm assuming that if it's not then that could put a huge burden on the family as well Right, that is definitely one of the one of the main reasons to pre-plan is to protect the family from the emotional burden of making decisions It's also a fine line between What you want as an individual to celebrate your life at that time and what the family needs and That's something with pre-planning. We can help families walk through and make sure that Everybody is taken care of Okay Some of the parts that I would assume that's why we're here talking about it is you know Some of the pre stages are planning would be like power of attorneys and have all of that. Where would that come into play? With power of attorney It's important for many aspects of your life But there have been situations with pre-planning that An individual has waited until they may be in their you know late 80s or 90s And they're not really able to make their own decisions, but it's necessary to make plans in order for us to do that It's good to have a power of attorney So if there's contracts that need to be signed if they're going to fund their funeral They can take care of that for them a lot of times a family member can be designated basically there's power of attorney for health care decisions and Power of attorney for financial decisions and these are single-page documents. They're a very simple form or instrument that can be drafted by the attorney or or even by a funeral director in certain cases And has to be notarized of course, but they're legal documents that basically gives up an appointed person the right to make The decisions that you may not be able to make And it's it's part of the overall estate planning That we always encourage our families to do ahead of time Because a lot of people have the misconception that oh, I I've I've left The instructions for my funeral in my will but a will is not read until after the funeral So that can create a dilemma. It's it's most important that you have your estate planning part done by a good law firm and then have the funeral planning part done by the funeral home, okay When we're talking about the funeral part planning, let's walk through the steps Where would I start? You know in in planning? I want to start to plan my end So where would I start? Where would I go? What would be one of the first things I would do call the funeral home call the funeral home and Simply talk to us. We Pam is available to Meet in the home if the person might be homebound or they can if they feel comfortable They're certainly welcome to come to the funeral home if if for some reason they don't have Transportation we can certainly send a car to pick them up and bring them to the funeral home and meet with Pam and and Discuss the primary Details of planning a funeral, okay Can we go into some or go ahead? I'm sorry. We have a list of over 125 things that need to be done in many cases after a death and You can come into the funeral home and we can get you started on that path It's not something that gets done in one day and that's why planning is so beneficial because you could work through that Okay Could we kind of step through the high-level part of it? So let's say we set up an appointment. I'm there. I'm by you I have my power attorney and everything drafted. So let's say that legal stuff is we're not getting into that That's a different matter, but let's say that's all done So what would be some of the things then we would start to go through? well, we would start to by talking to you and getting to know you and we like to get personal information as mark alluded to earlier we need information about your parents and Whether you graduated high school or not You know Where if you got married to what your spouse's name is those are things that we need for not only the obituary But also for the death certificates So we'll walk you through that and go through all the questions and and I actually like to get to know you You know, so we sometimes the conversations will go off into a tangent So it's very comfortable as far as us getting to know each other and just talk I'm kind of like we're doing here and then We'll go through your plans and some people come in and they know exactly what they want and others say I have no clue and that's my job is to give you the options of what you can have for your celebration of life okay Do you like a service like you provide your year facility with everything? Do you provide everything? front to back or do you work with other? Bringing in other organizations or agencies to help, you know with other parts of the planning Or is it everything that we come to you and it's all handled I? Would have to say that we pretty much I guess for lack of a better way of putting it is our one Stop shopping. We can coordinate things if if somebody might be looking to get involved with title 19 benefits or if a person has Issues where they need to put aside funds for final expenses We work with whatever other sources are necessary to accomplish that but normally as Pamid said We sit down and we we get to know the person we talk about what they're what's important to them for their final Tributes and a lot of times family is all there. Maybe not but we assess All of the information they give us and we help them plan the the best course For planning their final funeral okay, I know and Was that about 20 30 years ago my grandpa passed away 20 years ago or whichever I know we went through that and it was just you know the whole process was just like I never knew All that stuff had to go on like you know We sat down the obituary was written and everything and I thought that was done behind the scenes or it's like You know there's a lot of things that are out of sight out of mind It happens behind the scenes which you know I can see we're making it pre-planning and getting it all set up So the family doesn't have to worry about that when it comes time to grieve and you know to say their farewells And it's an emotional time So you may not be thinking clearly at the time of a loved one's loss So getting it on paper ahead of time. We don't want to miss anybody in the obituary There's no redoes So we you know we want to get it right the first time so by planning ahead of time It gives you time to think about it and make sure that your everybody is getting what they need and they're you know The grieving process and everything is started properly Well you mentioned redoes and that's a good question I'd like to bring up is you know you go through your plan and let's say all of a sudden You get divorced from one and you get married to somebody else Do they tend then to come back and change? You know the plans or how does that part work? We like the families to come back to us and update us We've had some that you know I may have talked to them five years ago, and I would say every five to ten years Come back and visit because life changes and you don't realize how much it's changed until you look at what you did ten years ago So nothing we put on paper is cast in stone. It's always changeable. You know Dave Our society has become so transient now, you know the adult children some can live in California and some in New York and maybe a couple 15 years ago came in and sat down with me or Pam or somebody and And planned out their entire funeral right down to having the funeral lunch and things of this nature 15 years goes by They may be a lot of their friends and things have passed away And their children are are spread out all over them. They have come in I have seen families where they say you know mark things have changed and our plans for our funeral arrangements have changed and we'd like to review that with you and Modify or change things and certainly either Pam or or one of the funeral directors can sit down and help a family Modify their original plans as Pam said nothing is really cast in the stone. Okay What about Let's say choosing whether let's say if I want to be cremated or you know buried, you know whole, you know, there's Burial plots, you know that you got to look for or if I'm cremated then where do what happens with that? Could you go through some of that? You know kind of of where I would go and how that's handled We have a list of the local cemeteries So if you come into us and you don't have a cemetery plot we can give you lists of Contacts to you know get a hold of and go there and Take a look at the areas and find out what they have available. So again, we're a good resource for all of those items there is basically There's burial in the earth Entombment in a mausoleum and in the case of cremation there's also Having the cremated remains at home and also some people choose to scatter cremated remains at a favorite place and We discuss this Usually in earnest with the family to determine because there are times when people don't understand that after cremation Something has to be done right for permanent placement of the cremated remains And of course, there's a lot of options these days With families as to how they feel the the most appropriate Final resting place for the cremated remains is so we try to advise them on that I know thinking about it, you know, I'm torn don't want to be buried or to want to be cremated Don't bury to learn be cremated, you know But part of me wants to be cremated and scattered on my land up north is where I'm you know happiest and something like that Is there any legal You know issues because once well here you just can't scatter somebody's ashes around or whatever is there anything like that that comes into legally the the actual process of cremation is Considered by the state of Wisconsin to be final disposition not unlike burial So by having a person cremated that act is legally the final disposition of the human body Now of course our bodies contain mainly water and carbon but there are elements that exist in our bodies naturally minerals and Calcium and iron and and this is the essence of our skeleton basically and and after cremation that's what you have is the essence of the person and By being able to either have a placement in an urn or scattering You can't go to Lambo field and run around at halftime out in the 50 yard line That's not what you can do, but but being discreet about a scattering is always appropriate, okay Question for you. What's a Grecian urn? Well, it's Just basically a style of urn That's the most classic Shape, you know, okay kind of like this. I thought it was based on what he does for a living See that's a little humor we were talking about You have to pardon me for that I did through that wouldn't yeah, but I'm pumped you caught me down there You go, that's you know break the mood. That's pre-planning versus something. Okay. Absolutely. Yes How does religious beliefs come involved because I've seen somewhere and I'm assuming that's where your travel side of the business comes in I mean, I've seen some have a full mass at church versus, you know, a few words are said, you know There's a ceremony like at your facilities How does that all work and how does religious beliefs come into that or how does that address? Well, you want me to handle that go ahead You know Obviously spirituality is a big part of our society. Yes, and Every religion has its traditions with Catholics, of course, it's the funeral mass and The Jewish people have certain rituals and and beliefs and in and what happens as well as other faiths and We usually work closely with the clergy And the family and Depending on the church that they belong to or the the faith community that they belong to we dialogue with The clergy and the clergy works in tandem with us to help them achieve what they would feel would be the most spiritual meaningful type of service available and Pam would also would talk with them about what is important to them, you know A lot of younger people today prefer not to have such a traditional funeral as The older people may be more familiar with but they still believe in having some kind of a spiritual event and in that case So Again, we work with the clergy of preference and if they do not have that we do have clergy available to help Celebrate that person's life and provide a spiritual message to the to the family and to the friends that come for a service Okay, I think that's such a wonderful thing, you know to have that because You know some people, you know, they do believe you know in spirituality or you know There is an essence that they believe but they may not be a full a Churchman going member whatever so it is nice to know that you know the choice is there to have you know Something said, you know over you or to help celebrate, you know your life. So I think that's really neat. Yeah as far as that goes Do you ever have the instances where you know Somebody passes the one tree you do if somebody passes away an accident or whatever where the planning hasn't been done How does that differ versus I mean, how do you handle a situation like that? It can be difficult. I would imagine yes It creates a challenge for the funeral director at We consider that to be an at-need situation where the family is requiring us immediately for for planning a funeral and And it doesn't just have to be a car accident it can be out Subbling the snow and and the wife goes to see why husband has come in and there he is You know, it can be a sudden death those are very difficult and Requires special care with the family to help them through that, you know the emotions that you feel In a sudden loss such as that can really be numbing to the family to the point where they really need special care and guidance if we're fortunate enough where the husband and wife have Sat down and talked about what's important to them even if they only talk to each other about it It helps tremendously And at the time of a sudden death but You know a lot of times unfortunately that hasn't been done there is there is no idea of a Final disposition a cemetery or things of this nature and it puts a an extremely high burden of Decisions that need to be made in a short period of time on the survivors You also have to look at the financial side of it If they haven't planned for anything and they don't have life insurance How are they gonna pay for it, right? You know and they're coming in and they're they have to make these decisions and now your decisions might not be based on What you truly want or need it's based on what you can afford what you can do because yeah You're all it's assuming you can save up for it or if you have life insurance But if something out of the blue comes in, you know, and you know as a funeral director in your Backgrounds and your training Do you also? Address, you know like grief counseling is that part of your background or do you then bring in somebody if you see you know A need of like a grief counselor or something like that There's groups that are that are available and but we are again a resource for that that we can Get you in contact with whom you need to be whether it's a child that needs to talk to somebody Sometimes it's a counselor at school. We can help with all that You know we have rainbow kids in Sheboygan I do know like Sharon Richardson has a support group as well There are some others in the in the community and as Pam indicated We do some follow-up work with our client families and if they do indeed feel they need a little extra help We'll certainly guide them into the right place. Okay. I Could imagine it's like, you know anything else you guys are almost like facilitators to make sure everything is Checklists almost that everything is just goes along and smoothing you help where you kid, you know event planner event plan exactly Yes, so let's talk about We're getting towards the end and we know let's say we're in a nursing home or something where the inevitable Is this going to happen? Let's say how do you work with the nursing home or how does that all work? The nursing homes especially in Sheboygan are very well versed with what goes on as far as when families come in They are often the ones that tell the families you need to go to a funeral home and get things planned and So they're they they work closely with us as far as that goes And they're also well aware that the money That you have can be depleted quickly So they want to make sure that the funerals get paid for and we have a product that we use It's an insurance product, but it protects the money from any Medicaid spend on situations And it's something that we can make sure that there is money there to pay for your funeral and protect the family I Know if we could just go through the step of Like in the case of my grandfather, you know when he did pass the way we got the call He was at the nursing home. You know he was passed away. What all happens behind the scenes because we were there We said our goodbyes at the time and then it was like he left and then things magically happened behind the scenes What all happens? well, whether it's Two in the afternoon or two in the morning when a person passes away when the family is comfortable the Staff at the health care center whether it's a hospital or nursing home We'll contact the the funeral home and Let us know that somebody's passed away and then we come up to the place of death And we meet sometimes the family is there where we can meet with them and talk to them for a little while possibly Maybe already set up an appointment to meet for to making arrangements and then we bring their loved one into our care and back to the funeral home and a lot of things Have to happen in a very short period of time of course with the newspaper the deadlines for newspapers can be real tricky and coordinating with clergy and Cemetery's and as Pam indicated there is there's a lot of Details that need to be done in a short period of time If they have indeed planned out ahead of time it makes our job much easier because we already know What their decisions are and based on that we can certainly start getting all the necessary details in line for them before we even meet there's times where we're able to finish up the rough draft of an obituary before the family arrives and Maybe they've already made their selections of a casket and which cemetery or or an urn and What their plans are for services and we can get all of those necessary things coordinated but there there are a lot of things Dave that have to be done and It it's interesting that you say that it almost seemed like you know magic the way everything fell into place To a certain degree, I'd like to think that was from experience but also funeral directors know What needs to be done and certainly we don't have enough time today you go into details with that but All of those decisions have to be made and certainly ahead of time is always best sure definitely We have about a minute left any final thoughts Before we close um, I just I'm a passionate person when it comes to pre-planning I've done it myself, and I can't imagine why people wouldn't do it It's scary to think about your own death, but imagine the people that have just you know, right experience to death And now they have to plan it for you. There's multiple steps to it You don't have to pay for it right away. There's it's just getting started and finding out what it's all about is important Okay, I would have to echo that and of course the other thing is I would encourage Spouses to start the dialogue between themselves and And let their their children know what their thoughts are too. That's all so important Okay Let's our show for this episode of quality of life I'd like to thank mark and Pam for joining us to talk about you know planning for the end I think it was a great episode and learned quite a bit. So again, I thank you both for coming on the show Thanks for having us For WSCS TV I'm Dave Augustine if you have any other questions about this episode or any other questions You can contact us on our website at www.wscsscheboygan.com Again, thanks for watching