‘In Conversation with’ Lisa Herbert

Lea-Ann McNeill
Hi, everybody. Hopefully, you are receiving our webinar, we just had a couple of little technical issues a few minutes ago, so here’s hoping that we are broadcasting.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Welcome today to the latest in the In Conversation series that’s provided by OpusXenta. My name is Lea-Ann McNeill, I’m the general manager for OpusXenta here in the ANZ region. And if you’re new, we’ve got 70 registrations for this webinar, which is quite exciting. But if you’ve never joined us previously, OpusXenta provides really technological solutions for the death care industry, particularly through the management of cemetery records and those sorts of things.

Lea-Ann McNeill
If you’ve never heard us, we’ll put to give you an email address a little later on in the session so you can have a look or either jump onto our website. But in the meantime, today during Zoom our webinar, there are going to be a few options for you. I’ll introduce our speaker, Lisa, to you in a little moment. But if you’ve got any questions for us today, you can see with your icons along the bottom, there’s a Q&A button.

Lea-Ann McNeill
If you have any questions at all, please use that Q&A button there to ask them Lisa is very candid. So we’re happy to take any questions during the presentation rather than wait for the end so that the Q&A button there is the one that you want. Also, let you all know that we’re recording the session today. That session can be provided later. So if somebody that, you know, misses the session today, they can obtain a recording of it later and we’ll post those things for people to log into. We also prepare a transcript of the session as well so that transcript can also be made available.

Lea-Ann McNeill
As I said, our guest today, very pleased to introduce and welcome Lisa Herbert today I had the pleasure of having a couple of conversations with Lisa prior to today. And if we can keep the webinar to time, I suspect we’ll both be doing very well. So in particular, I just wanted to share, I suppose, that OpusXenta in doing our conversation series we like to keep them relevant for our audiences. And in particular this month, we asked her if she would be willing to participate and kind of, I guess, the association with Dying to Know Day, which of course, occurs on the 8th of August, if you’ve never heard of Dying to Know Day, it really is an annual campaign to encourage people to start those conversations about death and death planning. And, of course, that’s something that Lisa is very passionate about as the author of the bottom drawer book and know you’ve got it up behind you there Lisa but I have also got my copy of my book in front of me as well. And Lisa, I hope, is going to talk a little bit about that book today. So, yeah, so today it’s all about talking about death, planning, cemeteries, and really anything that you would like to talk about today. As I mentioned, Lisa is very candid.

Lea-Ann McNeill
So please don’t be offended, I guess, by any of the conversations that happen today. This is a reality for everybody and it is something that we do need to be talking about. So, Lisa, look, I might just head straight over to you to introduce yourself and take it away.

Lisa Herbert
Fantastic thank you so much, Lea-Ann. Hello, everyone. I did put on Facebook that if you locked down, you are welcome to have a wine. It’s a very candid conversation. It will get fairly blunt from time to time. It’ll be fascinating and interesting, but it will be quite blunt. And so, you know, the good thing about being in a webinar, if you need to excuse yourself and make yourself a cup of tea or pour a glass of wine, please go ahead. I’m so thankful you are here. I’m so thankful that you’re willing to find out more about the inevitable. Western society is pretty bad at this stuff.

Lisa Herbert
So the reason I wrote The Bottom Drawer Book, the After Action Plan, is to get people talking. And I love to talk, as does Lea-Ann. And I need to give you some background on Lea-Ann. She’s a dark horse here. And her information is huge. Lea-Ann’s worked in cemeteries and crematoriums for ages and also on the board of directors of the Australasian Cemeteries and Crematoria Association. So between us, there’s a fair bit of knowledge and curiosity.

Lisa Herbert
So we really value your questions. So. So please ask us questions. Look, I’m just going to spend the first five minutes just going to share my screen and let you know how I kind of fit into the business, why I’m here, and what I have to offer. Scream if you can’t see the screen, oops. All right. This is this kind of sums up what dying to know is all a day about it’s opening the conversation that when a person is born, we celebrate, we send flowers, we have parties and showers.

Lisa Herbert
And when they marry exactly the same, we celebrate. But when they die, we try to pretend nothing’s happened. Everyone goes really quiet. So. I’d like to change that. So what is the bottom drawer? It’s an informative, colourful workbook to help things get in order. It’s a really down-to-earth modern way of writing down your story and also your wishes for your end of life, for your funeral. It’s got lots of information in it.

Lisa Herbert
So it just doesn’t say, hey, you want to be buried and cremated is information about what these things are. And I’m working on another edition that also has some information about other body disposal methods which will we will talk about no doubt. It’s things like giving your family permission to spend 500 dollars on your coffin instead of five thousand dollars on your coffin because everyone knows when you’re grieving, it’s so easy to want to show your love to your grandma or your partner with expensive things that you may not be able to afford.

Lisa Herbert
But if you had that conversation previously, you would know that, oh, hang on; grandma wanted a cheap coffin. She was a top chick, and she and she wanted to put the money on the bar. So having that conversation will save you money or it might cost you money. You never know. So that’s the kind of thing the bottom drawer book is. It’s not as gloomy as it sounds, my book is full of colourful illustrations, again, because I didn’t want it confrontational, I wanted it really friendly and as welcoming as this topic can possibly be.

Lisa Herbert
How it all started, this is Barry Delaney at the funeral of his best mate, Private Kevin Elliott. I remember when I saw this photo, I remember exactly where it was, where I was, and how I felt when I saw this photo. This Photograph is by Jeff Mitchell of Getty Images. And it shows Barry his best mates funeral in Scotland in two thousand nine. Barry, as you can see, wore an outlandish dress to the funeral of his mate. Kevin Elliott was a member of the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland and he was killed at age twenty-four in Afghanistan on the thirty-first of August 2009.

Lisa Herbert
So Private Elliott and Barry Delaney made a pact to wear a dress at the funeral of whoever died first. And what I liked about this photograph, it means it’s oh, it’s so sad. But it also means they had a conversation about their mortality. And considering that Private Elliott was twenty-four, it just shows that your never too young to have that chat. And that’s why when I started working on the book, I wasn’t targeting the older member of the communities. I was keen for everyone to have a conversation about their farewell.

Lisa Herbert
So I’m going to stop sharing now, so Kevin Elliotts. Part of the journey, I wanted Kevin Elliot’s family to know the impact that that photograph had on me, so I sent them a copy of my book because in the foreword to my book, I dedicate it to amongst a few other people’s Private, Kevin Elliot. So I sent this book with permission to the military welfare community in the UK is phenomenal.

Lisa Herbert
So I had a support organisation, so I went through the right channels and my book found its way to Private Killick, Kevin Elliot’s family. And here is my most prized possession. It’s a thank you card from his grandmother. And this is the first time I’ve ever read this entire card. So and I tell you what, I made a mistake of opening this card on the steps of the Tamworth with post office. And I sat on the steps and balled.

Lisa Herbert
Kevin had also spoken of what he wanted to happen if he was killed in active service, he wanted to be dressed in the top of his favourite football team, and he also wanted to have white socks, as we did not encourage him to wear white socks, feeling that were not acceptable. He also asked for 20 cigarettes and a box of matches in case the lighter didn’t work a torch, it had to be wind up as a battery torch might run out.

Lisa Herbert
And finally, he asked for a mobile phone in case a mistake happened and he wanted to be able to call for help. Needless to say, all these requests were made and delivered. What a privilege that this family shared the wishes of the son killed at war, and that just spurred me on. That’s why it’s so important to have that conversation, the solace and the giggles that they had reading my book. So they all gathered around as a family and friends.

Lisa Herbert
And I don’t know if Barry Delaney knew, but I’m hoping they included Barry Delaney in these discussions; my family and friends laughed many times during reading this. Which is which is brilliant. That’s exactly what I wanted. I wanted this to be a conversation that wasn’t dark and morbid. So hence my bottom draw book the after that after this action plan. There are lots of funeral directors these days and cemeteries who have their own little checklist on their website or have a notebook available, which is fantastic. As long as you’re you know, you’re answering those questions and letting your family know what you want. Brilliant.

Lisa Herbert
Those ones are pretty dark. They just straight to the point when I wanted mine to be colourful and, you know. A bit different. So that’s how my bottom drawer fits in. So that’s why. Do you have any questions at this point?

Lea-Ann McNeill
I haven’t got any coming through yet, but I do want to ask because this is a conversation or I did see your hand just come up in there. So if you want to just post your question, even if it’s in the chat or the Q&A, we can ask those questions for you. So please just go ahead and post those. But I just I guess I had a question because, you know, having this conversation with my family even, do you think it’s possible to plan too much, Lisa?

Lea-Ann McNeill
Like, do you think it’s possible? I’m going to if I’m the one that dies and I say this is all the things that I want. How does that work for those that are left to what’s their struggle?

Lea-Ann McNeill
That’s an interesting discussion because some people find solace going through someone’s music collection and they find connexion. And the family might sit around, for example, to try and work out what songs they want played at the funeral. So it brings everyone together to discuss and talk about, hey, remember that time we went to see the Bee Gees and blah, blah, blah. So if someone gives them the song list in their bottom drawer book, they write down the songs they want.

Lisa Herbert
They may not be that interaction of that conversation. So, yes, but. It also depends on the type of person. So if it’s someone like me, my friends are going to go, well, obviously it’s prepared. Lisa was a control freak and that’s what she wanted. And that’s how we remember her. Let’s understand, that more often than not, the e-mails, I guess, are incredible from families who are just lost at the time.

Lisa Herbert
There’s a blog. I write a blog. It’s called The Bottom Drawer Book, Dot Blog. And there is a blog there called; a song in a tattoo, the gift that Kelly’s mom left for her family. So Kelly bought Kelly’s mom, bought my book, and I didn’t think anything more of it, but the mom filled it in. And Kelly says after a long and hard battle with cancer, she passed away peacefully with family by her side.

Lisa Herbert
I remember dad saying he’d organised the funeral people to come by the next day. He had a lost look on his face. We all knew she wanted Michael Jackson played. But which of the hundreds of songs did she want? Then I remembered the book, I raced over to the table next to the chair, and there it was, the Bible, as we called it, the funeral prep was done within half an hour. The director was in the book and couldn’t believe we were lucky enough to have it all her wishes right there in one location, no hunting through music or trying to think about what she might like, the flowers or what she wanted to be dressed in.

Lisa Herbert
It was a lifesaver. We had no idea she wanted wasn’t expecting that by Jamie Lawson, played it, went on the song that would play randomly on the radio or music channels. When I was thinking about her, her little way of communicating from me from beyond. So that’s the solace then provided that family. But there might be another family who doesn’t quite need that detail. So it’s hard to say. I think any insight that people can give, whether they feel in the entire book or just have a conversation after this you know don’t buy the book after this, but just at least turn to your loved one tonight before you go to bed. And you know you know what? I think I want to be cremated and I want my ashes spread here. That’s a great place to start. And when the time does come, your partner goes. She wanted to be cremated and she wanted her ashes scattered down the beach. Perfect solace. That is that immediate gratitude of OK, I know that much.

Lisa Herbert
That’s a great place to start.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Yes. That weight being lifted off her family’s shoulders, getting to some comments coming through. Just a question was asked broadly in the Q&A and was just kind of about who was in the room, who was present, I guess, the in the webinar. And a few people are just starting to comment that they are Celebrants. So we’ve got quite a few Celebrants that are in the room. How can this book then be used by people, I guess, professional people in the industry, not just from a personal perspective around how we plan our own funerals or whatever it is that we want?

Lea-Ann McNeill
What about for professionals? Can I use it too?

Lisa Herbert
Absolutely. And celebrants and funeral directors are such important people. It’s their job to deliver the story of the person who’s died. Sure, a family member can do it, but it can be quite tough, tough to hold the whole funeral. I certainly get up and do a eulogy, but to carry through the entire service is pretty tricky. That’s why these people are so important. And the book offers and again, it seems like I’m plugging the book, but I just want you don’t have to buy the book. Just write it down somewhere.

Lisa Herbert
So I asked people in my book; list the most outrageous things you’ve done. One of the things she’s most proud of, what have you been your life’s most valuable lessons, list ten or so words to describe you in your life, blah, blah, blah. So a funeral director, the family celebrant can read these and then mold the eulogy, mold the service around the humour that’s in here or the dark thoughts or whatever else.

Lisa Herbert
It’s all here. It’s all written down in their own words. And again, I had an Anglican priest contact me, a retired Anglican priest who found the book that a lady died. The family doesn’t know where she got the book, but she died. And there was the book right beside her in the drawer. And she wanted her favourite hymn played Oh Yee Bethlehem or something. And it was August when she died. So the priests and the family loved that they were able to follow her wishes and not feel bad about a Christmas, him being sung in August.

Lea-Ann McNeill
IN August.

Lisa Herbert
So that guided the professionals in the way her funeral was carried out. And the good thing is you can imagine everyone singing Oh, Yee Bethlehem with gusto and a bit of a giggle that, you know, this is exactly what she wanted. Of course, this is her. This is exactly what she wanted. This is the best funeral ever. She would have been happy with this. And they leave that ceremony with a sense of I’m sad, I’m grieving, but all as well.

Lea-Ann McNeill
But I think to them, when Christmas comes, they perhaps hear it being played again. And, yeah, it’ll bring back some of that sadness, too. But I think it also has the potential to bring back that joy of, oh, yeah, we said in August, and what an awesome occasion.

Lisa Herbert
Yeah, it’s. I can’t stress enough, just you don’t have to plan the funeral, but just give people just give your loved ones just an inkling of where to start, and that will make all the difference. An awful lot of difference.

Lea-Ann McNeill
So I’ve got a question that’s come through from Trevor, and I’m thinking that Trevor is probably a funeral celebrant and he’s again looking at it from a professional perspective. Can we be having these conversations with families? Well, for a while, while the individual usually their conversation is with the family, you post the person’s death. Can they be having those conversations with the person and the family beforehand? And I certainly can’t say why not.

Lisa Herbert
Yeah, they should be. Whether you’re a celebrant or a doula or just a friend. Absolutely. Some of my major clients are palliative care services who bulk buy my book. So there are people. Yeah, they obviously know they are terminal. And I get emails from people who are very frank about their mortality and that the end is near and they literally type: Hello, Lisa. I’m terminally ill. This is the last thing I have to do, blah, blah, blah.

Lisa Herbert
So it’s very easy for us to step away and go, oh, you poor dear, you’re dying. Let’s not talk about it. Let’s close the curtains. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Not everyone, but most people know what’s coming. They may as well be prepared. And I give a lot of public talks and I have people coming to my talks with their seats, waving their CD, saying this is my playlist, I’ve already got it organised and they seek it out.

Lisa Herbert
So there’s a lot of people who are like me and you, who take it on and tackle it head first, so please don’t think that everyone doesn’t want to talk about that. As soon as the conversation starts, people just start talking and they don’t stop.

Lisa Herbert
So I had I did an appearance on Studio 10 when the soon after the book came out back in twenty fourteen and I had an email from a lady and she’d bought ten books. She bought four books for her family. And sadly again, she told me that her son was finally succumbing to his childhood brain tumour and they didn’t want him to be the only one feeling in the book because any of them could be going at any time. So they wanted to be as a family and have a giggle and have some fun. So it comes down to an open conversation and everyone filling in that book and that offered them, you know, an awful lot of solace and so important. And again, I cried when I got that email. I’m a big sook.

Lisa Herbert
But it’s so important that it’s not only the person that is terminal or dying. This is a conversation for everyone. And absolutely. Celebrants, please sit down with those who are ready and open to talk about it. Some might not be. And that’s the advantage of the book. You just leave it with them. It might sit there, they might look at one page of a day.

Lisa Herbert
That’s fine. You start and I have some lawyers, some succession planners who do the same thing but give them the book and then they start talking about what’s going to happen to the farm, blah, blah, blah. So it’s just a colourful way to ease them into it and open that conversation.

Lea-Ann McNeill
You’ve just raised that question about kind of succession planning, and I’m writing it down, so I remember to come back to it because and you kind of have already commented on this. Lois asked the question around, how do we get past those family members who arrive at the very last minute and don’t agree with the wishes? And I guess that is some of that. Let’s try to have the conversation beforehand before we’re right at that. But the reality is the way families, some families are these days, there’s really going to be disagreement and there always will be.

Lisa Herbert
And that’s why it’s like, OK, I filled in my book, Mom and dad, you might not agree with it, but here it is and. You know, in the end, they’re going to have the final say, the next of kin will have the final say, not ideal, but OK. And there are things like I talk about organ donation in the book as well. So it’s not just your organ. Donate up, tick the box.

Lisa Herbert
I ask, why do you want to donate your organs and then write down the reasons? So it’s not just a yes or no answer for the people that have the ultimate say. It’s getting within about why you think that’s important. So you’re trying to. You describe the emotion behind your decision, so hopefully, it will sway them and it’s a similar thing with everything else, that if you can be open and communicate with your family from the start, then that’s all you can do.

Lisa Herbert
That’s all.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Yeah, well, and Frances and Frances, I’m going to assume you’re a funeral celebrant as well. Frances is saying that I’ve gone through this process only to have the family refused to follow the deceased’s wishes. And Frances, that’s a really tough position for you to be in, I guess because you’re sort of trying to work for this family, but also trying to do the right thing by this person who has now passed.

Lisa Herbert
Yeah, and there’s only so much you can do. It’s like, OK, if that’s what and this is what it comes down to. It doesn’t matter if your wishes are followed like your dead like you’re not going to care. You’ve got to decide and just be understanding. You know what? I might not get what I want, but at least I’ve had my say and I’m going to come back and hold them and turn the toilet roll backward every time.

Lisa Herbert
But yes, you will always face that there will be people who don’t follow your wishes. And that’s just a fact of life. And as long as you can do what you do, try and convince them otherwise and just, yeah, there is there’s no way you can fix them apart and conversations and look.

Lea-Ann McNeill
And I guess that’s the thing I’m really saying, lots of comments coming through on the Q and I about actually different ways that people are using the book or the even themselves are putting together sort of presentations. I’m just reading through the through here, you know, going out and doing presentations with Probus clubs. And I guess what I get from that is that there does seem to be this willingness to start to talk about our deaths.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Now, you talked about succession planning, talking about lawyers, and succession planning. And I’m always constantly astounded by the statistic that the Groundswell project always talks about. I think it’s around 50 percent of Australians and New Zealanders die without a will.

Lea-Ann McNeill
And if they’re dying without a will, they’re certainly not thinking about this stuff. And I think death these days and death planning encapsulates so much more than what music you want played or what are you going to do with your Instagram account? Who’s going to manage your Facebook or your LinkedIn and those kinds of things? So advice to families around tackling that, Lisa. What do you think?

Lisa Herbert
Yeah, knowledge, and I’m going to mention the book again comes down to social media; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, what are their death policies? And the cool thing is for Facebook, for example, you can action that now so you can nominate a legacy contact right now. Just go into settings, your privacy settings, and follow your nose so that when you do die, that there’s one person or two people that you’ve nominated that can oversee your Facebook account. And Facebook is very, very smart.

Lisa Herbert
And Instagram a very, very smart. It doesn’t mean that they will see all your messages and your dirty DMs those naughty, naughty photos. It’s not like that. They don’t access those messages, but they do access your wall means you can put up Lisa’s funeral is tomorrow, by the way here’s a photo that I saw that from her last Christmas party, you know, and get people talking. So that’s Facebook, for example.

Lisa Herbert
There are some social media sites that simply, they don’t offer that opportunity, you can either leave it up there for eternity, it seems, or you can simply ask for it to be removed. So the email, Facebook and Twitter, and whatever else and site here is the death certificate for this person. I’m the executor of the will. We want this account taken down, please. So there are those policies in place? Google, for example, has come up with a really great policy. Let’s face it, we’ve got YouTube, which is Google we’ve got our emails. We’ve got Google Drive. Don’t about you, but there are a lot of my accounts and important stuff in my Google Drive. You can nominate a contact to have access to that and you can also break it down. So one person might get some of your Google Drive and another person might get another bit of the Google Drive. And then there’s part of the Google Drive that no one gets. So you can really break that down.

Lisa Herbert
Unbelievably, next month and only next month. Apple has finally pulled its finger out. When you consider the market share that Apple has, up until now, they’ve had no death policy. It’s atrocious what Apple have been doing. But as of next, next month, with the latest update, it looks like people will be able to have a legacy contact with Apple. So there’s considering the information that’s flying around the interweb, it’s disgraceful how some of these huge companies have not taken legacy contacts and death and dying seriously when it comes to accounts.

Lisa Herbert
But finally, the tide is turning.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Yeah, and I guess with more and more, we’re starting to see even within sort of, I guess, the cemetery industry or around re-memorialisation, more and more we’re saying emergences of digital headstones or great products that can be included or attached to plaques which will beam a person’s story onto their phone. All fantastic things, but things that still have to be managed.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Beverley’s just popped a little comment up. AFCC have just produced a document giving people the opportunity to write down all of their passwords, etc. But all of the reasons being discussed, which is probably great, but we also want to make sure those things are secured while we’re in life too, I guess writing any of those kinds of things down does come with its challenges yet.

Lisa Herbert
And also there are companies that that will offer you a virtual vault so you can put all your documents, all your passwords into a virtual vault. It’s very highly protected. It does cost. It’s an annual cost that you have to pay paying for that security. And then when you do die, whoever you nominate gets access to that very private cyber vault. So, yes, some people say I’ll just write down passwords in the will. Keep in mind that once the bill passes, probate gets the big take by the court.

Lisa Herbert
That will does become not public property, but more people can see that we will after probate. So whether you want all your passwords in there is a bit iffy.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Yeah, it’s really quite complicated, isn’t it?

Lisa Herbert
Yeah, it’s very complicated. So if you’ve got photographs of your grandchildren that you nurture and they locked in a Flickr account online and you’re the only one with the password, I urge you to do something else with those photographs or leave your password on the fridge. It’s photos a robber is not going to care bank details from the kids. But there are those kinds of things that are really important that, yeah, the passports will be required for.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Let me talk about I guess we talk about planning, I mean, part of it is certainly whether you’re going to have a funeral in a church, whether you’re going to have a, I don’t know, an outdoor barbecue. I mean, let’s face it, there are lots of different options these days. There is some kind of research that has been occurring, I know, in some of the universities in Australia around. And I guess it’s probably really being exacerbated when we think about covid in some of the restrictions that have meant that people haven’t been able to necessarily attend funerals.

Lea-Ann McNeill
But some of this research has stretched even to the notion of memorialisation and cemeteries or the notion of ashes being placed in memorial walls and those sorts of things. Is that becoming outdated in favour of we’re going to go and break someone’s ashes on the beach and do it all that way? There is some concern that this lack of, I guess, memorialisation in the traditional sense could create some mental health issues down that track with people failing to grieve or memorialised properly.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Do you have any views on that?

Lisa Herbert
I do have views about memorialisation. I’m a big fan of direct cremation. So that’s that’s me. So a direct cremation is no funeral. And it’s virtually if I died tomorrow, the funeral director comes, picks me up, takes me straight to the crematorium. My ashes are ready in two weeks. I’ve told my friends what I want done with my ashes heading up to Currawinya National Park. So that’s that’s me. But I would hope for my friends and what they will need.

Lisa Herbert
I would hope they will kind of miss me a little bit. I still need to get together and have that ritual, whether it’s the week after I die or six months after I die, it’s still going to need that. I’m not going to say closure because, yeah, death is just the opener as far as I’m concerned. So there is a really important and all the studies say that you need support, you need people. You need to talk about this thing.

Lisa Herbert
So, yes, there is always a place for communal grieving where people can get together, hug, cry, drink, whatever else it is. And something else I find interesting. I love cemeteries, cemeteries are like libraries, they’re the holder of every grave is a book, and it’s up to you to take the book out and open it and do your research and look at it and wonder what life was like in those times. More and more people are getting cremated these days, probably 50 percent, maybe even more than 50 percent these days.

Lisa Herbert
Getting cremated actually is a lot more, 70.

Lea-Ann McNeill
It’s about 70, 78 percent here in Australia. Yeah.

Lisa Herbert
And the thing is, those people’s names aren’t written anywhere in the cemetery. So when I go to a cemetery I see a name and I look at the dates and I can probe the cause of death on a news story. And I know that person’s story. But if someone’s cremated, I’m never going to see their name. I don’t know that there’s a story there. So the question for everyone here. Does that matter? So. You know, when there’s destruction of graves or the reusing of graves like in Perth and South Australia, that kind of thing, because of a lack of room, people appalled saying you must preserve the dead, the memory, respect the dead.

Lisa Herbert
And then I often ask myself, how respected were those people when they were alive? So we think about death where we respect them dead, but we may not have respected them as much alive. So it’s a long answer to a hypothetical question. It’s grieving so important and I think people’s stories are so important in some capacity. But this is the saying is you die twice the first time you die. You take your final breath. The second time you die is the last time somebody mentions your name.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Your name.

Lisa Herbert
Yes. That could be two generations. Could be three generations. Could be one generation. But does in the big scheme of things, are we okay with that or do our egos go? You know, I’m not okay with that. I want to be remembered. So you get yourselves. How do you want to be remembered? Do you want to write your story, whether it’s in a book or blog, whatever else so that your grandchildren get to know you?

Lisa Herbert
Or are you happy just to fade away and no mention of you anymore?

Lea-Ann McNeill
Yeah, I think I love that you mentioned cemeteries because obviously coming from having sort of managed cemeteries and I didn’t originally come from the industry, but I was struck on I don’t know how many occasions by people or ancestry.com. It’s one of the biggest sorts of growing hobbies in the world these days. Everybody wants to research their family history. And for a lot of people, that brings them to a cemetery. And I’m still amazed by the emotion shared by people who, when they found the grave of it, an ancestor that they would never have met and what perhaps one hundred years ago that that person had passed.

Lea-Ann McNeill
So there is something really powerful in cemeteries and memorials, I suppose. Full stop.

Lisa Herbert
Yeah, stories, people’s stories are important, and I’m a big fan of old rural cemeteries because they tell a way of life. If a grave is in Gumm Flat, which is near Inverell in northern New South Wales, and there is a grave with three children, three or four children who died in the 1930s. And I needed to find that story. And it turns out there was a barn fire. And so I looked up the article in the paper the next day in the Sydney Morning Herald out of Sydney, and it tells the extraordinary story of how this fire unfolded and how the worker had to saddle his horse and gallop into town to raise the alarm.

Lisa Herbert
So you get the sense of urgency and hard times and a way of life by looking by viewing a grave and that that story’s important. And I told that story on my Facebook page and I got it. It exploded. It’s been shared like a squigglion times. And now every time I visit that grave is a new plant or a teddy bear on that grave. And I like to think it’s because I. I told people the story of that fact. So I guess if there’s cremations or this, there’s no memorial, those stories will be lost. That said all those stories could be on the Internet. So it’s a different story.

Lea-Ann McNeill
But how if I shared that to me is how do we make sure that they’re shared? When when I was a kid, the cemetery kind of really wasn’t. So I grew up in you know when I was in my teens. It was the eighties, I think. I think the eighties were kind of the years of the real emergence of or the new emergence of horror movies, you know, and they all stemmed around the very dark cemetery with the, you know, the big metal fences around them and.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Cemeteries have this stigma about them. They’re not places that we go, but of course, in the Victorian era, they were the parks. That was where people would take a turn around the cemetery. How do you think we can change it? I mean, I guess it’s a bit like funeral planning and talking about death. There are things we don’t talk about. Cemeteries are the same. How do we get people back into them and seeing them as inviting places that are of wealth, of stories?

Lisa Herbert
I’ve seen some mad parties in cemeteries in Darwin, for example. I walked into a cemetery, a wanderer from way back, actually went to this body and they would have been 15 cos they were kids running over graves. They were drinking whatever else. And I thought that was a wonderful use of space. I certainly acknowledge the man down the other side who was trying to have a quiet moment with his wife. But it was great to see that these people didn’t fear the cemetery and the kids were growing up to include grandpa or grandma, whoever it was.

Lisa Herbert
So we need and I would like cemeteries to come on board and they are coming on board, having open days and telling their stories, which was opened at Mount Gravatt Cemetery in Brisbane a couple of years ago. And it was no holds bar like the mortuary was open, very frank discussions. And I learned all this quirky stuff like at the time it was in drought and the cockatoos of Brisbane had worked out that in the little flower vases, the little plastic ones with a sponge in the middle of these cockatoos that worked out that that’s where the water’s kept.

Lisa Herbert
So they would go through the cemetery working out all these flowers to drink the water. And the families were going, my grave has been violated, my poor ma. And it’s like, no mate, that’s just a thing I want to drink. And those of things, these quirky little things about cemeteries and there is Towong cemetery in Brisbane, which is massive and undulating and it’s beautiful. And what I really enjoy at Toowong, I often see people having picnics and kicking the footy.

Lisa Herbert
Yes, there’s a big grassy area.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Big grassy area.

Lisa Herbert
And I thought I often think; I wonder if they know that they’re running over people’s graves because that was the there are so many unmarked graves in cemeteries, both modern and old school cemeteries. There are graves everywhere that we walk over. They are just not marked. And in certain sunlight and in certain rainfall conditions, you can see the soil disturbance all through Towong cemeteries. There are several patches of grass that people think, oh, no one’s here.

Lisa Herbert
Let’s lie out here. But you can actually see that there are graves of the grave. And I think that’s wonderful. Maybe they do know. And I hope they do know they playing soccer over some children’s graves because they know the ones that are there. But I often wonder, would they still be kicking the footy if they did know that they would know?

Lea-Ann McNeill
you make a mention of the fact that you know, cemeteries, we are seeing different things happening in cemeteries. Now, Sherry has made a comment. It wasn’t Sherry sorry, Trevor’s made a comment. Yes. Centennial Park has put a beautiful new cafe in function centre in their cemeteries. We are seeing a lot more cafes. We’re starting to see children’s playgrounds put into cemeteries. And I remember speaking to a young mom in a cemetery one day who was there and she was visiting the grave of a child that she had lost. But what she loved was that there was a playground close by or just located not far from the children’s area, which meant her other children, well, could be playing in that playground.

Lea-Ann McNeill
So she didn’t see it or those kids weren’t going to grow up seeing that as a place where mum was sad, but actually, a place that they enjoyed as well.

Lisa Herbert
Yeah. And it’s so important not to be fearful of those. And I really give conversations like this and going to cemeteries to find stories. My friend Darren, he’s got three, three generations in one grave, one plot at Toowong Cemetery, and he’s created a garden, so I said he’ll be there with these, you know, digging sticks and whatever else and planting stuff. And now there are people who he doesn’t know that will tend to the same garden.

Lisa Herbert
So it’s this little community just by giving this cemetery some love. But I also and I’m going to be blunt here, I am concerned about some modern-day cemeteries that are very cookie cutter and they have rules that your monument can only be this big and they can’t be bland. Colours can’t be loud colours and stuff. And I think that is doing a disservice. I went to the I think it was Nimbin. I dropped into the cemetery there.

Lisa Herbert
And as you can imagine, northern New South Wales, quirky arty thing. And this cemetery had just these homemade busts of people and stones and artwork. And it’s and it’s represented representative of that town. So I wasn’t surprised to see this quirky cemetery because it told the story of the town. Yeah. Cookie kind of cookie-cutter cemeteries are not telling the story of the town. They’re telling the story of… lOng, boring rows, so I have a bit of a problem with that.
Lea-Ann McNeill
Yes, Liam has made he’s asked a question here and just going back, I guess, to the story of the children who died in the barn fire. And I guess he’s talking a bit about the involvement, I guess, of media in these stories and the decline of a lot of local media and how this can affect the preservation of stories like this because I guess we all used to have our little local newspaper. And Liam’s absolutely right. A lot of those aren’t being written anymore.

Lea-Ann McNeill
That was where some of these great stories were being shared.

Lisa Herbert
Very much so. I’m the editor of my local newsletter in Country Victoria and every newsletter because this is an aging community. Every newsletter has the story of someone who has recently died. And that’s really important. And that’s often the only way these people can communicate amongst themselves, particularly lockdown, for example. So that’s a what a way of telling stories. And with newspapers, death notices used to be long death notices and in-memoriam and all that kind of stuff.

Lisa Herbert
And there are more and more people turning away from newspapers because everything’s done online these days. So you are losing these stories. So I really do urge you to write them down or even record them. Grab your phone. Everyone’s got a recorder thing on your phone. Next time with your with Nan, say so Nan tell us about that recipe and how you used to make cakes in the 1940s. To capture the voice and the nuances. And then you just save that in a USB, distribute it.

Lisa Herbert
So when the time comes, you’ve still got the sound and the story, at least one story from her. To capture the stories as best you can in any way you can just write them down. I think you’re boring, but I can guarantee you are not.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Yeah, a lot of what we’ve talked about really has revolved around change. This is an industry really quite broadly that that is changing. Lambesis commented here and I apologise if that’s not how I pronounce you and I, but we don’t have many green options here in Australia, you know, and some thoughts around that. We are seeing a lot of change. We are seeing green burials starting to open up, although takeup has been slow. But then we’re seeing some of the other composting resomation, some of those sorts of things certainly starting to emerge overseas.

Lisa Herbert
It’s really interesting, natural burial grounds. There is no standalone natural burial ground in Australia. There are cemeteries with natural burial grounds attached, which is a great start. And when we talk about natural burials, we talk about just thinking, the environmental thinking with the environment in mind. So you’re not burying your loved one in polyester, a material that’s never going to break down, burying your person full of chemicals, for example, if they’ve been embalmed. So that’s why we talk about natural burial.

Lisa Herbert
That’s what we’re talking about, you know, coffins without heaps of lacquers and glues and things. So I’m interested in your comment. And it’s a comment I found as well. This natural burial ground thing has been bubbling away probably more and moreover the last decade. But I’m not seeing the uptake in natural burials. It might be because the people who want a natural burial aren’t dead yet. And maybe in 20, 30 years, that’s when natural burial grounds go boom.

Lisa Herbert
But I’m really interested in your take about how everyone said, oh, yes, we want to be environmentally friendly. But when it comes to the crunch, why are we not burying the dead in those natural burials.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Yeah, I think some of my personal experience has been there is some reluctance on behalf of some of the traditional funeral directors. I think that’s changing. I think it is a slow change. But even families themselves, what we have found with some of what you would think is as close to a green burial area and that there are no markers. And that seems to be the one thing that continually challenges families and they want some form of marker. So when you say to them, there are no headstones, there’s no anything here, it is literally just a green field.

Lea-Ann McNeill
It’s definitely something that they balk at the end of the day.

Lisa Herbert
Yeah, and a lot of those you identify the graves with the microchip or GPS, so you could be trying to find your gran and you’re celebrating your gran’s birthday and standing around where you think her graves that you’re chatting to a stranger and he’s loving it, but you might be at the wrong grave. So that’s an interesting take and again, doesn’t matter that you’re not right there at your person’s grave. I dunno. But yeah, I can see the uptake has been a bit slow, slower than I think a lot of people are.

Lisa Herbert
But you’ve mentioned all the other options. I’m just going to read Liam’s comment. I think part of the issue involves a misperception concerning the environmental impact of cremation, vs, namely cremation, has a greater environmental impact. Ba ba ba ba ba. Yeah. And when it comes to environmental impact, this one’s a minefield. Think of burial. A lot of people don’t think of the mowing and the fertilising of the grass and the ongoing maintenance of that grave and all those hundreds of graves around us.

Lisa Herbert
Cremation. Yes, there’s a heap of gas used. You know, you’re burning someone at nine hundred degrees Celsius for up to 90 minutes or even longer. That’s a whole lot of gas you are using but people. Again, it’s like you still all these cars are driving to the funeral. You still don’t know what the answer is. I don’t think that’s true. Environmentally friendly option. I was talking I wasn’t talking about emailing. There are three companies in the United States that are looking at human composting.

Lisa Herbert
And one of those and I’m just going to talk a little bit about human composting because there was a little bit of media around that last year. And it’s called National Natural Organic Reduction. Those who haven’t heard of it. And it’s started in Seattle, in Washington. So the top left-hand side of the United States, if you’re looking at a map and it’s defined in the state law there, that it’s the contained accelerated conversion of human remains into the soil.

Lisa Herbert
So it’s just yeah, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s human composting. And there’s a company called TerraMatian who I query them only yesterday about the nutrient value of their soil. And bare with me. So, yes. I just I’m just reading this email from our compost reports show that the Teramoto remains contained potassium, calcium, magnesium, nitrogen, sodium, and other non-toxic elements that are beneficial to the earth. It’s so nutrient-dense that we have a care guide for our families to let them know how to use the remains as a proper ratio.

Lisa Herbert
So they say 20 percent of your remains to 80 percent of soil or just one or two inches on top of your garden, whatever else. But this thing about Terramatian, this company, they all they say, like human composting, is only legal in a couple of states in the US at the moment. It’s going to get bigger. But this company is offering a nationwide service. So I queried them and I say, what, do you have a mobile capsule or how does it work?

Lisa Herbert
And they say, no, we will move your person and we will move your body. So you’ve got to think of those carbon miles of moving a body from Florida up to Seattle for it to have an environmentally conscious. You know, this body, so it’s one thing to say, yeah, I want to save the environment when I die, but let’s drive four thousand kilometres in a car with fumes. So it it negates that. So does something for people to think about.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Yeah, absolutely. Look, I’m conscious of time, so I’m going to I’m kind of still skimming. We have had so many questions and comments. It’s been absolutely fantastic. And I think the one thing I’m hearing from everyone, I mean, there’s lots of interest. And I think that’s the thing that’s so fascinating about it is that people are starting to talk. Please continue to feed through if you’ve got sort of other questions and we’re trying to get them in before Zoom kicks us off at eleven-thirty.

Lea-Ann McNeill
But I did I guess one of the things that what I’m hearing is there are options to your funeral. Some will want the tradition, some will want the party. There’s an option to; do you want to be buried, do you want to be cremated, do you want to consider the green option and some of those new technologies that are happening overseas, how do you want to be remembered, and memorialised? How are you going to manage your Facebook accounts and all of those sorts of things?

Lea-Ann McNeill
And I think for me, and certainly, after talking to you, it all comes back to you do need to think about it, you do need to do your research, as you would any other product that you are looking at purchasing in reality. And you do need to have conversations with people about it. I think regardless of mean, we could talk about this stuff for hours, but that is the one big message that comes out of it.

Lisa Herbert
And the message is being informed allows you to make informed decisions at what may just be the worst time of your life. Yeah. Funeral directors have a very important role. They put up with so much stuff. Can you imagine the state that people are in when dealing with this? So I want people to be informed and have that discussion because funerals are big business. You pay what you pay a lot of money for their services. So I want you to have the best service as you possibly can.

Lisa Herbert
And there is no one size fits all funeral. I’ve noticed some funeral directors are very traditional, stuck in their way. But then there is business emerging and has been quite emerging for a while. These new funky funeral directors. Yep. So as long as people are informed and they don’t have to stay with the first funeral director who’s in the phone book, please get this, if you’re going to spend 10, 15 grand getting your kitchen redone, you’re going to get quotes, you’re going to go, Homes Beautiful and look at all the designs. You’re going to do your research. I urge you to do that research with funeral directors so you know that you go to a chapel now, all the chairs aligned like they’re all lined up in a row. It’s really boring. It’s it’s cold. It’s that’s the traditional way of doing funerals. You have every right to say, you know what? I don’t want those chairs in rows. Can we with the coffin at the end of the chapel, can we put the chairs in a circle?

Lisa Herbert
Can we put the coffin in the middle? Can we take the chairs outside hell? Can we go to the pub? You know, these are all very real options for your funeral and the funeral of your loved ones. So if you’re a funeral director and you say this is what I want and I go, yeah, no, I can’t do that, find another funeral director. But I found directors are amazingly open to conversations. So if if you’ve got any questions after this, call your local funeral director.

Lisa Herbert
They’re always up for a chat. I found them brilliant in researching my book. I was just cold calling funeral directors all over the country and they were so willing to help me and have that conversation. So please do the same. If you’ve got a group of mates and you’ve got a heap of questions, call up your funeral director and say, hey, listen, can we pop in for half an hour, see your mortuary, see what you do, and learn that way, please.

Lisa Herbert
If you want a Lions Club organiser, you might have to sell it a bit more. But your group on the minibus to head to a couple of funeral directors’ places so you can be at the point. You can see everything that’s involved. So please search and make those for information, earn the dollars because they’re big dollars, but they do offer very important service.

Lea-Ann McNeill
When we’re talking about options. I do want to give you a book, a plug again. Lisa, where can people buy the book?

Lisa Herbert
The bottom drawer book, dot com dot, Covid has stuffed up my next print run. So I am running really low, if you email me via that website site, Secret Squirrel, and I haven’t told anyone yet, within a couple of weeks, there will be an e-book version available.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Fantastic.

Lisa Herbert
So if I don’t have the physical book, which is highly unlikely because covid has got my print run in Brisbane, that there will be an e-book available. So Lisa at the bottom drawer book dotcom.au.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Fantastic. Now look, Lisa’s book, as she said, it’s really candid. It’s funny. There’s some great little quotes and great little pictures in it. If candid isn’t necessarily going to work for you and possibly for some of your clients, Lisa. And I’ve also talked to there’s a range of these sorts of resources around, so you can certainly Google them. I’ve also got Life, Legacy, and Love. This is a book that was written by the team at Centenary Memorial Gardens here in Brisbane.

Lea-Ann McNeill
So it is, I guess, much more formal, very detailed. But I guess that’s what we’ve been talking about today. It’s been about exploring your options and getting what’s right for you to enable you to have these conversations and to do some planning. So look, on behalf of, from me, a great conversation. So you’re obviously in Brisbane. So when covid stops wreaking havoc up here, I would be making time to have coffee and chat some more.

Lisa Herbert
Actually, I’m stuck in Victoria,.

Lea-Ann McNeill
So your stuck in Victoria. I know that.

Lea-Ann McNeill
I always want to thank the Groundswell project. I’m not planning for everything that they do around to die. But because you publicise our webinar here today, we’ve had such a great turnout and lots of fantastic comments continuing to come through. As I mentioned, I’m the general manager for OpusXenta. We do cemetery mapping records, management, and solutions to help cemeteries, big cemeteries, small cemeteries, crematoriums, funeral operations.

Lea-Ann McNeill
So you can also have a look at what we do at opusxenta.com. So for everybody that’s joined us. Thank you very much. We do run these every couple of months and we always have great speakers and is just another fine example of that. Thank you, Lisa, so much for your time. What a pleasure.

Lisa Herbert
No worries. My Facebook page is the bottom drawer book of the After Death Action Plan. Please send me a message or contact me by my website. I can see quite a few questions coming up. So thanks so much for being so thoughtful and considering your options. It’s a great start. Well done.

Lea-Ann McNeill
Thank you, Lisa, and thank you everybody else, have a great weekend. Bye now.