Your wishes for what will happen after you die are vitally important but only a third of Australians have made plans about how they would like their lives commemorated in the event of their deaths.
Death has lingered around Della Muscat since she was a young girl.
The 36-year-old, who grew up in Mackay and now lives in Brisbane, said people were never too young to make a plan and let their family and friends know exactly what their wishes were.
Through the creation of a web application, she wants to change the way we talk about and plan for death.
“I know it sounds crazy but I want life celebrants like we have wedding celebrants and venues that are non-secular and beautiful flowers and celebrations of life that someone has created for themselves,” she said.
When Della Muscat was 29, she lost two really good friends in the space of two years.
“One was from ovarian cancer and the other was a tragic car accident.
“The decisions that were left to be made for my friend that suddenly died were so difficult.”
Ms Muscat recalled a casual conversation with her friend Jemma as they sat on Ms Muscat’s deck drinking wine and talking about their plans for death.
No-one knew that Jemma would be dead within a month.
“I was a new mum and I was telling Jemma that I had this idea to help people do this,” Ms Muscat said.
“She sort of laughed and said, ‘that’s a really weird idea but I think it could work’.”
The two young women continued to chat about what kind of “celebration” they would want in the event of their death.
Ms Muscat said she wanted a cheap wooden coffin, a paint and sip night and all of her friends in attendance.
“I want everyone to dance around and have lots of drinks and laughs and then cremate me and keep me in an old-school Mexican tequila bottle.
“We giggled and Jemma said the same thing… that she wanted to be cremated.
“Four weeks later she died in a car accident on the way back from a wedding.”
Ms Muscat came to view that conversation was a blessing that changed the course of her life.
“Of course we dread death but if there’s something that can help us and make it a little bit easier, then why not?”
Developing an app
Over the past year-and-a-half, Ms Muscat has poured her life savings into hiring a web developer and creating what she has called “after me”, while still working as a lawyer.
The website, which she hopes to make into an app for mobile devices, is centered around the idea of planning for death and alleviating the stress for loved ones left behind.
It is not a legally binding will, but rather a safe space you can jot down things such what kind of funeral you would want, who your dog would go to, or whether you want your organs donated.
You can even record voice messages or letters to send to loved ones after you die.
In the event of your death, your profile would be released online to people you have invited to receive the information.
“If you don’t have what’s called an advanced health directive in Australia or a power of attorney in place, your next of kin has to make decisions based on what they feel you might have wanted.
“Let’s hope you’ve had a conversation and your intentions are known.
“We didn’t make it legally binding or go down that road because I want it to be used worldwide, be non-religious and non-legislative.”
Ms Muscat said in addition to the logistical side of things, she wanted it to be about memory journalling, love and grief mitigation.
“I’m surprised it’s not something that’s done more.
“There are formats of it but not modern and recording everything from our heart right through to finances.”
Getting dead set
Cherelle Martin is the national manager for a public health campaign called Dying to Know Day.
Ms Martin said she has noticed online platforms starting delve into the realm of post-death directives.
“I believe in two or three years time, we’ll start to get a sense of how those platforms might play a bigger role in how people want to record their wishes,” she said.
“It’s really great to see these new concepts and ideas coming through.”
This year, The Groundswell Project conducted a survey including more than one thousand people, 18 and older, across all states and territories in Australia.
The results found that 87 per cent of people surveyed believe it is important to do some sort of end of life planning, but only 35 per cent actually had.
64 per cent of people also said they find significant challenges and barriers to recording their wishes.
“That includes death and dying as being too emotional to think about…and the not wanting to talk about it,” Ms Martin said.
On Monday, the campaign hosted its 10th year of events across the country to encourage people to capture their choices.
Dr John Rosenberg, a palliative care nurse turned academic, spoke at an event hosted in Gympie.
“One of the things we’re looking at in the future is whether we can pitch some conversations around dying to schools with younger adults,” he said.
“If we’re teaching civics at school…if we learn how to vote and we learn how our government works…this would fall beautifully into that kind of learning space.
“What’s required, what responsibilities we have with writing a will for ourselves, writing an advanced care plan so that other people know what our wishes are.”
Dr Rosenberg said we should not be shielding children from the reality of our mortality.
Lisa McAulay, a social worker at Little Haven Palliative Care, said she believes being able to talk about death helps relieve people’s fears.
“All of these little taboo topics, we try and put an age on when they should start being discussed.
“The truth is, there’s a little bit across a lifetime.
“The younger you start, the more prepared you are.”
Della Muscat said she believes leaving post-death directives is a social responsibility.
“Nobody wants to talk about when you die.
“But as sure as we are born, we will die.
“That’s probably the only two certainties in life, and that you’ll pay taxes.”
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