THE PINEAPPLE PROJECT | S4 04 | Will power — does it count if you write it on a post-it?

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[00:00:01] Voiceover: This is an ABC podcast.

[00:00:05] Jan Fran: I’m going to tell you a love story. Once upon a time, there lived a woman named Mary Livingstone. When she was 19, Mary fell in love with a boy named Jack and they got married. Mary and Jack stayed married for 50 years. Until one day when he was 80 years old, Jack fell into a coma and never woke up. Mary was heartbroken. The love of her life was gone and everything seems bleak. Then something strange started happening. Mary awoke one day to find a single long-stemmed rose on her doorstep. At first, she thought nothing of it, but she found one the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Every day, she would find a rose at her door. It turned out, that Jack had written the flowers into his will. One red rose to be delivered to Mary, every day for the rest of her life. Isn’t that bloody adorable? That’s a true story too. Who doesn’t love a good floral delivery provision in a will, eh? I’m Jan Fran. This is The Pineapple Project and together, my friends, we are dying good or better. So, you know, you can include some pretty weird shit in a will and the executor is obliged to carry it out, if not by law, then definitely by the threat of your undead spirit invariably haunting them forever.

[00:01:37] Andrew Simpson: I had a lady many years ago, who, she had cats and she wanted her ashes mixed with the ashes of her cats that have been previously cremated and all scattered together. So I’ve never been asked to do that before.

[00:01:49] Jan Fran: That’s Andrew Simpsons. He’s, hopefully, the last lawyer you’ll ever need.

[00:01:54] Andrew Simpson: And I help people draft wills. I help them with their Estate Planning and help them resolve disputes after death.

[00:01:59] Jan Fran: Andrew here has very kindly offered to take us through the do’s and don’ts of writing a will. But first, a question, do you have a will? Yes, you. I see you, eating shaved ham from a bag and watching Legends of the Fall like you’re going to live forever. I watch Tristan, by the way. Well, guess what? You might not be able to afford your own home, but you can’t afford not to write your own will and I’m going to tell you why.

[00:02:28] Grimmy: Grim, Grim Reaper.. To my first love, you, little angel, I give you a war correspondence. I’m very sorry I declared war on you.

[00:02:46] Jan Fran: What you doing, Grimmy?

[00:02:48] Grimmy: That cat-burning lawyer got me thinking, I can’t believe it’s taken me three and a half thousand years to start writing my will.

[00:02:55] Jan Fran: Whoa. It’s that how old you are?

[00:02:59] Grimmy: Why, do I look older?

[00:03:00] Jan Fran: What? No. No. You don’t look a day over 2,000 years. What are you writing?

[00:03:06] Grimmy: I’m trying to work out who gets my assets like, you know, the end of days compound. I have in New Zealand or my shares in News Corp.

[00:03:13] Jan Fran: Oh I see.

[00:03:14] Grimmy: You know the sayings true, Jan, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

[00:03:16] Jan Fran: And what if there’s no will?

[00:03:18] Grimmy: Well, debilitating domestic breakdowns, probably.

[00:03:25] Jan Fran: Yes. Grimmy’s right. Just ask Andrew.

[00:03:28] Andrew Simpson: I’ve had sisters end up in fist fights at mediations and affidavits drafted raising just horrible things against other family members them and raise things have no one ever knew before it can get very, very nasty and very, very personal.

[00:03:42] Jan Fran: Lawyers like Andrew have seen it all and then some.

[00:03:46] Andrew Simpson: I’ve organized eulogies before where no one in the family has been able to able or willing to do it. Drafted eulogies where actually there’s no family at all. And, you know, friends would say, “Look, we’ve got to do something.” And so I’ve had to try and piece together a summary of their life story from friends and others. I’ve arranged cremations and disposal of ashes and euthanizing of animals and cremating of animals and dealing with personal channels, some of those fantastic, you get together and, you, everyone draws a number from a hat and that’s the order in which they get to select an item of personal belonging. So supervised all of those kinds of things. It’s a very interesting job sometimes.

[00:04:26] Jan Fran: Mmm. You’d really be across that human condition, wouldn’t you?

[00:04:29] Andrew Simpson: Ah, you have to be, yeah, and if you miss some of the cues early on, you know, things can get out of hand pretty quickly.

[00:04:35] Jan Fran: The life and times of a wills lawyer, eh? Yes, they’re very in demand because they spent quite a bit of time dealing with avoidable conflict and stuff like this.

[00:04:46] Claire: My mom died and didn’t leave a will and my family home was left to my stepdad.

[00:04:50] Jan Fran: This is Claire and understandably, there’s still a lot that feels unresolved about her mother’s death.

[00:04:58] Claire: So my mom was a single mother most of my life and she was a drug and alcohol clinician. Yeah, she was very kind of devoted mom and a bit of a silly personality. She’s very healthy person went to the gym lots and ate lots of vegetables and was just on the whole pretty active. When she was 55, she woke up one morning with a pain in her arm and ambulance came and she ended up dying that morning. We didn’t ever find out what the cause of death was. But thought it might be something like a blood clot. I always thought medicine might be more advanced to be able to pick up what happened, but unclear as to what happens. A quite a sudden death. But yeah, as I said, she was quite healthy so really caught us off guard.

[00:05:45] Jan Fran: What also caught Claire off guard was what to do next. You see, her mom didn’t have a will.

[00:05:53] Claire: So I lived in kind of family home with two brothers and a stepdad. We, I was in high school at that house most of my life and two older brothers. And yeah, we were I guess just a pretty standard family. She had bought the house about, I would say maybe 10 years prior. She met my stepdad about five years prior to her death and he had a house as well, so put some money on the mortgage. So it was a joint, jointly owned house, but it was the house, I’d mostly grown up in my life. It wasn’t the most smooth relationship and kind of environment prior to her dying with them not going very well, I guess.

[00:06:36] Jan Fran: So what happened after your mom died?

[00:06:40] Claire: My, kind of, middle brother and I were very keen to move out, pulled out of uni, getting a full-time job to be able to find a place to rent and I guess funeral preparations at the time, we had, I guess, in these cases you usually hire a lawyer to guide you through the process. So our stepdad had been, [Pat], selected a lawyer to, to go through the process with and we wanted to be involved as much as possible to go along to appointments and I guess understand what would happen from there. The superannuation and the house monetary value were the main things, I guess, in her estate. He said things to us like, “You don’t have to worry. I’m, of course, like of course, I won’t run away with everything.” Although we, kind of, was starting to understand that without a will we had no entitlements at all.

[00:07:31] Jan Fran: So you, as her children had no entitlement to her estate at all because she hadn’t left a will.

[00:07:38] Claire: That’s what we were told by the lawyers that we had advice from and we were told that we were over 18. We were all living in the house with her at the time and dependent on her but that due to there being no will with a marriage particularly and I’m not sure about de facto that everything the partner or spouse is entitled to everything in the estate and that it wouldn’t be worth our time to contest it. So the superannuation also didn’t list any beneficiaries, but for that process we were able to make a claim of dependence and they made the decision of splitting the superannuation half to my stepdad and half to me and my brothers.

[00:08:14] Jan Fran: Claire’s lawyers suggested to her stepdad that he sell the house and split the proceeds equally between him and the kids but he didn’t want that and the kids were so young. They felt that they didn’t have a leg to stand on. So in the end the stepdad got the family house.

[00:08:31] Claire: You find yourself having to justify what you’re entitled to.

[00:08:35] Jan Fran: Do you wish your mom had written a will?

[00:08:39] Claire: That is a firm yes. It was such a traumatic and I guess tumultuous time if they’d been something, you know, it seems simple but just making a will, there was you know countless nights and it still, it still upsets me now seven years on. I still get quite angry about it. Deep in I know what she would want and really I know we would be benefiting from it, but it’s about someone’s life and their life work and what they would wish for their life work in that not being respected or honored is something that makes me really upset and yet just having a will is that the only way to really ensure that someone’s wishes are honored and followed through with.

[00:09:28] Jan Fran: It is worth saying here, that’s there are infinite perspectives when it comes to family disputes, but that’s what makes this legal document that much more important. What happens if someone doesn’t have a will?

[00:09:45] Andrew Simpson: If someone doesn’t have a will, problems arise almost straight away and the first problem that arises is nobody’s appointed to act on behalf of the estate. So when you’ve got a will, you’ve got an executor appointed and their authority come from the will so they can start acting straight away – to arrange the funeral, make inquiries of banks and other institutions. When you don’t have a will, nobody’s appointed to do that. And so there’s this period of limbo where no one can do anything until someone’s actually appointed as administrator of the estate and then they can start making inquiries on behalf of the estate. That might be a three, four, five week period minimum. So you’ve got this period of nothingness where no one’s authorized to do anything. The second problem is that there might be dispute about who that administrator is so you might have multiple people in your family, all who think they’re the best person to administer the estate and then you’ve got a dispute. So that’s one of the real positives of having a will. You avoid that, that dispute straight away because someone’s appointed to act for you. And then you’ve got things like well who’s entitled to it? Is there a partner if so, how long is the partner been a partner? Does that give them priority over parents or siblings? So all of a sudden you’ve got these questions about the nature and length of relationship to determine who’s able to apply for administration, and who’s entitled to the estate. And we see plenty of disputes where someone says, “I’m the partner, have been for X,” and the family says, “Well, no, we haven’t never even heard of you.” And so all of a sudden you’ve got this dispute about who applies for administration, who’s entitled to the estate and how do you establish that.

[00:11:16] Jan Fran: Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. Okay. Step one with wills is deciding who is going to be your executor. So what exactly does this special person do?

[00:11:26] Andrew Simpson: An executor is the person you appoint in your will to step in to your shoes to administer your estate after you’ve died. So they typically arrange a funeral, they work out what your assets and liabilities are, make sure your debts are paid, and then carry out your wishes as written in the will.

[00:11:43] Jan Fran: Lucky duck! It’s really important to choose someone that you think is going to handle the responsibility here, right? If your sister can’t return the DVD to the local library on time, ask yourself, why is your sister still watching DVDs? That’s very weird. And also, are they really up to selling your house once you’re gone? Probably not. So, how do you choose?

[00:12:06] Andrew Simpson: They’re dealing with your assets and your wishes, so it’s important to appoint someone that you think can carry out the function and someone who’s trustworthy. If you have any reservations about their trustworthiness or whether or not they’ll do the right thing, or potentially they’ll end up in a fight with other family members or beneficiaries, they’re probably not the right person to appoint.

[00:12:25] Jan Fran: You said it, lawyer Andrew, because lots can go wrong. And when you’re dead, well you can’t do anything about it, because you’re dead

[00:12:35] Andrew Simpson: The executors can go rogue and it happens from time to time. And by rogue, that can mean, they do nothing. So sometimes we see cases where executors just don’t get on to the job. And so many, many, many months can pass and nothing’s happened. They don’t apply for probate. They don’t pay the bills and things get delayed and obviously beneficiaries are going to be upset about that and so that can lead to a dispute. On other occasions we see executors working for their own interests, so they put their own interest ahead of the beneficiaries. They might make distributions to themselves before others, they might take personal chattels out of the house for their own benefit. So there’s a range of things that can go wrong and so it really comes back to that initial point, you need to appoint someone that you trust implicitly. It’s very common for an executor to be a beneficiary as well. So, take the stand of husband and wife scenario, they would usually appoint each other as executor, and usually give the estate to each other. And similarly with children, often the children are both the beneficiary and the executor.

[00:13:41] Jan Fran: It’s also quite common to appoint a trusty company or even a lawyer as your executor. Appoint responsibly. Terms and conditions apply.

[00:13:49] Grimmy: Death himself!

[00:13:51] Jan Fran: Grimmy? You’re still here?

[00:13:53] Grimmy: Yeah, I’m finally getting around to writing my emotional will. It’s a bit different to my legal will. It’s about moments, you know, objects and memories that I want to make sure people I love remember me by.

[00:14:05] Jan Fran: Oooh. For someone who kills a hundred fifty thousand people everyday, you’re a sensitive guy.

[00:14:12] Grimmy: I just want to make sure nothing goes unsaid, you know. In your emotional will, you can include something that’s meaningful but might not have much monetary value like passing on a recipe or your several busts of Bronwyn Bishop or all those lorikeets your dad keeps collecting. And don’t forget to put your emotional will in a folder along with your important documents, like your life insurance, all that shit.

[00:14:35] Jan Fran: Good tip.

[00:14:36] Grimmy: And what will you be leaving me?

[00:14:38] Jan Fran: Sorry?

[00:14:39] Grimmy: In your will? “Watch” will you be leaving me?

[00:14:42] Jan Fran: Oh! I, yeah, no, I, well, I don’t, have a will.

[00:14:47] Grimmy: You don’t have a will? Have you listened to the first half of this podcast at all?

[00:14:53] Jan Fran: Well, I just, it’s, I, hey, hey, well I just, I, you know, I– don’t look at me like that.

[00:15:00] Grimmy: Like what? You know I don’t have any eyes.

[00:15:03] Jan Fran: Okay, fair point.

[00:15:04] Grimmy: Just write a will. You don’t have much time left.

[00:15:07] Jan Fran: Okay. Wait, what?

[00:15:09] Grimmy: Got to go. Bye! Oh. She’s very high maintenance.

[00:15:16] Jan Fran: Never did I think that I would take advice from the grim reaper. But here we are, in my lounge room with my husband. Old mate and I are going to write a will.

[00:15:25] Al Morrow: My name is Al Morrow, and I am your husband.

[00:15:29] Jan Fran: Okay. So, do you know how to do a will at all? Do you have any idea how to do a will?

[00:15:35] Al Morrow: Not really. Do you have to follow a particular thing? Or can you just write it down and then it becomes your will?

[00:15:43] Jan Fran: No. I think you have to, like, fill out a form. Although, I don’t know. I’m just going to punch in to Google, “how to write a will.” Do you reckon you’ll get any tough questions? That you won’t be able to answer?

[00:15:56] Al Morrow: In front of you or in front of the podcast?

[00:15:58] Jan Fran: Funny.

[00:16:00] Al Morrow: In front of Australia.

[00:16:01] Jan Fran: Whatever you tell me, you can tell Australia.

[00:16:05] Al Morrow: Uhh, no. Look, I mean, I think that I’m 37 years old, I should probably have a will. We’ve been married for four years?

[00:16:12] Jan Fran: Four years?

[00:16:12] Al Morrow: Three years? Three years.

[00:16:14] Jan Fran: Yeah.

[00:16:15] Al Morrow: 2016.

[00:16:16] Jan Fran: Okay.

[00:16:16] Al Morrow: Got the tattoo to prove it.

[00:16:18] Jan Fran: Yeah. So, have just Googled “how to write a will.” Well, how do we know which?

[00:16:24] Al Morrow: Make it relevant to New South Wales?

[00:16:26] Jan Fran: Okay. Okay, so that one, newsouthwales.gov.au, that one. But the thing is, how do you know which will kick to even start writing a will with?

[00:16:34] Al Morrow: No idea.

[00:16:35] Jan Fran: Uh-oh. Razmataz. If only we had a lawyer we could ask all our questions to. I’m always trying to scam some freebies, you should to, frankly. Because you don’t actually have to see a lawyer to write a will. In fact, you don’t have to see any lawyer. You can pick up a DIY will kit from the news agents for five bucks. Fill it in, leave it with your fam, seal it. Or you can just type “free will kit” into the Google machine and see where you land because a will is better than no will. Now, would I recommend you do that? Not necessarily. Only because there is so much to think about when writing a will, and sure, some will kits are definitely going to be better than others. But I don’t know if any will be quite as good as a real-life human will kit that you can ask questions to, such as Andrew. How does one write a will?

[00:17:34] Andrew Simpson: First thing in it to really work out is what assets are you attempting to deal with because that’s the starting point. You need to know what assets you can actually give away as part of your estate planning. And the reason that’s important is because people from time to time attempt to give away assets that aren’t their own. So you need to work out, what is it that I can actually give. Then you need to work out, well, who’s going to administer the estate when I’m gone, that that person’s the executor. So who am I going to appoint to carry out my wishes when I’m no longer here? Then you need to work out, if I’ve got young children, who’s going to look after the children when I’m not here. The guardians, really important. In fact, that’s the issue that stops a lot of people doing wills because they can’t appoint someone who they trust to look after the kids. The wife says to the husband, “I don’t trust your family.” And she says, “I don’t trust your family.” So you need to come up with an agreement on who’s going to look after the kids.

[00:18:23] Jan Fran: Well, I don’t have those. But, that’s actually really important. If you do have kids, you’ll need to nominate a guardian for them. Say, if you die and you’re a single parent, who would they go to? If you have kids with a partner, or a former partner, imagine, well what if you both die? It happens. Who would you want raising the children? Where does this person live? Are they nearby? How old are they? It’s also a great idea to check with a potential guardian that they’re on board before you put them in your will, otherwise, very awkward. Also, some disputes do wind up in the family court. And the kids could go to a court appointed carer until the matters resolve. So, you probably want to be avoiding that one. Anyhoo, back to me.

[00:19:10] Andrew Simpson: Tell me what assets you own. What do you own? What are we dealing with?

[00:19:13] Jan Fran: So we’re dealing with an apartment.

[00:19:15] Andrew Simpson: Yup.

[00:19:15] Jan Fran: That we both own. It’s in both of our names and a cat.

[00:19:20] Andrew Simpson: Cat? That’s an interesting one. Yeah, For the jointly-held asset is an easy one because that would pass to the survivor automatically. So, provided you are wanting to leave your apartment to the other, that’s all okay. The cat’s an interesting one.

[00:19:35] Jan Fran: Is this a good or bad time to admit that I care more about my cat, sorry, my son than I do my apartment and probably my husband.

[00:19:45] Andrew Simpson: Often people don’t take account of what happens to pets but the executor still has to deal with the pet. And I’ve been an executor many times, and I had to deal with dogs and cats and, you know, do I re-house them? Do I euthanize them? Do I, what do I do with the ashes? Do I, there all, I mean, it’s quite complicated dealing with pets and so I encourage people, if you’ve got a pet, nominate somebody to take care of it or give some instructions the executor about what you want to happen with it. Some people say, “Look, my cat or my dog would not re-house. They’re so attached to me that they get distressed if I try to give it to somebody else. So can you just humanely euthanize it. Cremate it and then dispose of the ashes.” So, but other people say that, “I’d love you to try and find a new home for the cat or the dog.” And they’d even set aside some money to cover the cost of the care of the dog. So I’ve seen people do that too.

[00:20:37] Jan Fran: Okay. That’s good to know. I did put the cat in my name deliberately.

[00:20:42] Andrew Simpson: Good.

[00:20:43] Jan Fran: In case something happened, that cat was going to go to, like, my family.

[00:20:48] Andrew Simpson: Look, that’s a good move. You can die in peace now.

[00:20:54] Jan Fran: Okay. So we’ve got an apartment that feels fine, a cat, make sure you give the executor the instructions. And then we’ve got things like a car, which frankly, I’m not sure anyone would want. We’ve got a car, clothes, and furniture.

[00:21:10] Andrew Simpson: Yeah. Yeah. And the one thing that people forget about is superannuation and life insurances in super.

[00:21:16] Jan Fran: Yeah. I did forget about that. If you’re not super across your super, let me tell you, the one thing that you definitely need to know. Go back and listen to the Superannuation episode of The Pineapple Project Podcast. Just scroll back to season 1, episode 9 to hear it. Anyway, here’s the other thing you need to know about superannuation. If you don’t speak to your superfund first, and tell them how you want your super to be paid and to whom, you cannot, I repeat, you cannot include it in your will. Wills are for the things you own, and you don’t actually own your super. It’s held for you by a trustee. So, if you want to include your super in your will, you need to fill out what’s called a superannuation death benefit nomination, and my god, that is the driest sentence I have ever uttered. And then there’s your life insurance, and that one time you invested in bitcoin and the bonds you bought back in 1982, and the equity you own in that start-up that miraculously hasn’t gone under yet. You need to decide who inherits these assets. And also who inherits the more cheaper ones.

[00:22:30] Andrew Simpson: You know, plates, clocks, collections of things specific sentimental items that you want to give away to certain people. We collect things during our lifetime – jewelry, whatnot. If you want to give them specific people, record that because it’s often those issues that cause dispute after death.

[00:22:46] Jan Fran: Right. Good. Back to my husband and I in our lounge room. We’ve downloaded a will kit. Specific bequests, this is where you outline particular items, you wish to give to particular people. Like what? Our car? Well, I mean, this is in the event that we’re both dead.

[00:23:07] Al Morrow: I guess so, yeah. Or that you just, that is something that someone’s always said they loved and you could pass it on to them when you pass away.

[00:23:14] Jan Fran: Like my clothes?

[00:23:15] Al Morrow: Probably. I don’t really need them.

[00:23:17] Jan Fran: I’m going to be buried in all my clothes. I’m not giving my clothes to anyone. I’m going to be wearing ten pairs of shoes when I’m dead. I would leave my half of the apartment to you.

[00:23:34] Al Morrow: Yeah, I think that’s generally how it’s done.

[00:23:37] Jan Fran: And you would leave your, the half of the apartment to me, obviously.

[00:23:39] Al Morrow: Yeah.

[00:23:40] Jan Fran: Good. Just checking. I think my sisters think they’re going to get my half of the apartment which is like..

[00:23:49] Al Morrow: Whoa, as if.

[00:23:54] Jan Fran: Wait a minute. Did I just do my will?

[00:23:56] Al Morrow: Maybe.

[00:23:58] Jan Fran: You know, they didn’t really ask about assets, they didn’t ask about super.

[00:24:00] Al Morrow: Maybe we’re supposed to specify in the special bequeaths who gets what. Maybe we’re supposed to go, “the flat, the car, your super.”

[00:24:10] Jan Fran: What about those bitcoin investments you have.

[00:24:13] Al Morrow: That’s also not worth very much either, but if it ever was, yeah.

[00:24:19] Jan Fran: All right, lawyer Andrew, what’s the one bit of advice that you have when it comes to wills?

[00:24:24] Andrew Simpson: People think that a will is a simple document, you know, just filling in the gaps. That’s what some people think. And so we see all kinds of variations of very odd attempts at wills and usually, unsurprisingly, people mess it up. So they just don’t get right, they forget to revoke previous wills, like forget to appoint an executor, they forget to give away the whole estate, don’t get it signed properly. So we see plenty of disputes because people attempted it themselves.

[00:24:49] Jan Fran: Have you ever seen a will done on the back of an envelope?

[00:24:52] Andrew Simpson: Many, many wills done on envelopes, serviettes.

[00:24:57] Jan Fran: What?

[00:24:58] Andrew Simpson: If you look at that one piece of advice, do a will and do it properly.

[00:25:03] Jan Fran: Wills, they sound boring. But you know, what’s more boring? When you die and your family falls out over your stuff and you can’t defend yourself because you’re very dead. So what are the main things to think about when writing a will? One, nominate an executor. Will it be your partner? Will it be a relative? A friend? Or a professional? Look at it this way, if you had to appoint someone to pay your electricity bill on time, who would that person be? Two, if you have children, you’ll need to nominate a guardian. And please, check that they’re up for it first, dear. And three, make sure your will is up to date. If you get married, divorced, have a kid or your beneficiaries are no longer around, you’ll need to update it. There you go. The top three tips to think about. And upon some reflection, I’m probably not going to leave everything I own to that guy on Instagram who rescues cats in Istanbul. All right no, I still might. I’m Jan Fran. This is The Pineapple Project and we are doing death better because if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Next time on The Pineapple Project: It happens every 15 minutes in Australia.

[00:26:22] Woman Speaker: The doctor said, like, “You’re, you’re a, might, you need to make this decision.”

[00:26:27] Jan Fran: Someone makes a life and death decision on behalf of a loved one.

[00:26:31] Man Speaker: And people don’t realize that they’re not there to have an opinion. They’re not there to and unsave somebody’s life.

[00:26:38] Jan Fran: What it really means to be an emergency contact. And the one document you need to have right now to make sure your wishes will be respected. That’s next on The Pineapple Project. The Pineapple Project is mixed by sound engineers Angie Grant and Krissy Miltiadou. Produced by Karla Arnall and Claire O’Halloran. The executive producer of the podcast is Rachel Fountain. The role of Grimmy, The Grim Reaper is played by legitimate sweetie Rhys Nicholson. Love him. The host is me, Jan Fran, love me. And Kellie Riordan is the manager of ABC Audio Studios. Oi. If you’re loving all these death chat sick, you might also be into the ABC podcast Conversations, because they really get stuck into the big life and death questions. The podcast’s host Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski have recommended a couple of episodes just for you. You’re ready? Okay, write these names down, Jenny Briscoe-Hough and Cory Taylor. Jenny’s a community worker in Port Kembla, and she reckons we need to stop outsourcing death. She’s basically pioneered the trend of community funerals. And Cory Taylor is an Australian novelist and screenwriter. She was diagnosed with melanoma. And the thing is, the cancer moved really really slowly. So Cory had ages to come[00:00:01] Voiceover: This is an ABC podcast.