This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on I Heart Radio. And welcome back to Coast to Coast. George Norrie with you, Mandy Benville. Lead back with us president and co-founder of Keeper, which is online memorial and digital legacy platform that helps folks document their life stories and helps families preserve and share those memories after a death. She is also the co-founder and editor of talkdeath.com, a death education platform dedicated to encouraging thoughtful conversations about those who have passed. Mandy, welcome back. How are you? I'm good. Thanks George. Thanks for having me. What was that moment in your life that caused you to go into this field? Of course. I was at a cemetery, classic. I was visiting my grandfather and I was walking through a mausoleum where they had urns in these like glass front cases. And so families would place objects like, you know, little photos of them and different items and mementos. And one of them just kind of stopped me in my tracks. There was a blank CD. So, you know, CD from the 90s that we all used to use. And it would say, it said dad's work written on it in Sharpie. Dad's work. And so it stopped me in my tracks because you don't typically see technology like that in a cemetery. And this was back in 2012. And I tried actually looking up the person's name because I was like, what could be on this CD? I was so curious. Of course, nothing came up on Google when I did search for him. And it made me realize that this person's life was so important and their legacy was so important to their family that they wanted a way to preserve it and display it in some way. And that's really how it all started. I thought, what if you could walk around a cemetery and learn about every person's life story? What if there was a safe place for families to be able to store that legacy? That's fascinating. I'm in St. Louis right now, Mandy, where they just arrested some lowlife guy who ripped off a cemetery, stole 40 Brown's urns that were in the graves, memorializing those who had died, and he stole them and took them home. You know, that's like the fourth story I've heard in the past like two or three months, literally. There was someone who was recently arrested because he had grave robbed for years and sold body parts online too. Like, can you imagine anything worse? It's awful. Who would buy those things? Oh, I don't like to begin to guess that. Some people like to display bones and things like that. I mean, you know, hunters do it, but it's of animals. I honestly don't know. Some people like strange things that I don't know if I'll understand. And I guess a Brown's urn is worth some money, huh? Honestly, I mean, not that much. Like, usually they're like a couple hundred dollars. So I honestly don't really understand why people would do so. Some people just, I don't know, find it interesting to have that. There was one locally near me and they were stealing just like little small urns, which are like, monetarily, it's not really worth anything. And I don't know. Some people just, I'm not really sure what the motivation is. And the remains of those cremated were in the Brown's urns. Oh my gosh, that's so awful for the families. I hope they throw the book at the guy. I really do. That's cruel. Yeah. Online memorization and how does it feel in both the legacy planning and remembrance after death? How do you do that? Yeah, so essentially we, the way that we do it and the way that folks are able to do it online is if before you pass away, the legacy planning side, what it actually allows you to do is start preserving your memories and your life story before you pass away. So literally it means going onto a site like ours and filling in prompts. And the questions could be as simple as, what do you feel was your greatest accomplishment? What do you, how do you want people to remember you when you pass away? It's something as simple as taking your favorite photos that you've uploaded to Facebook of yourself and your family and putting it on the site. It's thinking about the history of your life, whether you're a veteran, whether you know, your work and your career and placing it in these designated areas on the site. And then when you pass away, that is published and family is then able to always have those memories and those moments. That's a really powerful tool and that's really on the legacy planning side. That's if something you wanna do in advance and something we're seeing people do more and more. Shouldn't the planning be done years ahead of time before the person dies? Ideally, yes. You talk to any legacy planner, yes. So, before you pass away, there's obviously a number of things that we should all be taken care of, right? We should have our wills in place. We should have our power of attorney in place. We should be having written out our medical documents to say what we want to happen to us if we are incapacitated. And we should also decide what we want to do with our bodies when we pass away. Do we want cremation? Do we wanna be buried? And the legacy planning on what we're talking about here, I like to say it's the fun part. This is the time when you are able to reflect on your life. And of course, doing that when you're in good health, when you still have access to your old photo albums. And it's something that you can do slowly over time, over years. And it should absolutely be done quite in advance. It's such a fulfilling thing to do as well, right? Imagine just having something that you can look at that you feel really captures your life on this planet. And I think it's such an amazing gift that you can give to your family. And it's something you can do with your family. I started doing it with my grandmother. We started going through her old photos and she would just tell me things and I would start transcribing them and having that is something that I'm gonna be able to show my kids and hopefully their kids. And it's just such a comforting thing. It could be fun too, right? Oh, 100%. Honestly, I think it's, I barely think it's morbid or sad in any way to be honest. We usually always get the opposite reaction. I think it's more morbid and sad after the fact if nothing was done prior to the person before they died. And then if you have to scramble and find things and stuff like that after the fact, that's when it's sad. Exactly. And I mean, look, the honest truth is that most people that come to our site are making a page for someone that has passed away, right? Most folks are using the online memorial feature over like the legacy planning tool. And the reality is because most of us don't plan ahead. And oftentimes it's because some of us are not really ready to face our mortality and doing this is, you know, a way of facing your mortality, right? Thinking this is something that is gonna be here when I'm not. And so the online memorial side is, you know, it's incredibly wonderful for families because you can put it up, you can put as much or as little information as you can. And what's important is that you share it with friends and family, and then they're able to go in and add their photos and their stories. And it becomes like what I call the quilt effect where everyone is able to share a piece of that person's life to make a whole story. So online memorials can also be very healing, but the legacy planning, you know, it removes the burden of, you know, what would they have wanted? I see families arguing over which picture they should use as the main photograph, you know? It's so, it just removes that conflict. It takes away from, you know, that emotional time. Social media is somewhat comforting because those who have passed on generally had some kind of an account on Facebook or Instagram, and they don't take those down. They last for almost forever, don't they? Yeah, they can. And here's the pros and cons to this, right? Is before Facebook launched, they're, they actually have like a memorialization tool in that you can say that someone is going to sort of manage your page, but the difference is that your Facebook page is frozen in time, right? It's frozen in those last couple posts that you had, and it all depends on your Facebook use, right? If you were someone that just put in, you know, the key memories and really used it to, you know, show the trajectory of your life and share those important moments, then yes, it's nice, but if you're someone who's just like, you know, constantly posting for your daily activities and just posting stuff that you're sharing, it's not really the same. Like sure, it's a reflection of who you were, but it doesn't really have a way to sort of capture your life. And I think what's most important is that there's no space for other people to kind of really talk about you and to share their stories, because when you turn it into memorialization mode, it's like locked down, you can't really do anything with it, and you also have to try to get access to it, so it honestly can become a hassle, and that's like one of the biggest tools that our families use is they want help to take those important pieces that are in your Facebook and your Instagram and put it on a page where it's gonna stay, it's not gonna be removed. You know, I had one of the reasons why I started the company is right that year that I was, like right after I went to that cemetery and I was telling you that story, my mentor had passed away really, really suddenly, and I went to his Facebook page and his parents had taken it down, so his parents were maybe a little more old school, and I realized all my photos of him, all my interactions, even like my messages, it was like when we were just using Facebook, everything was there and everything went away, and it was like I felt a second loss, so the family can't take it down, and so it's not always 100% secure, you know? What I find strange is those that have died that I know, when their birthdays come up, people who don't know they've died are saying happy birthday to you, I haven't seen you in a few years, how you been, and it's kind of weird. I know, it is weird, and when it comes up on your list of recommendations, and it immortalizes the person, but it's in a way where you're not expecting it, and so it can bring up emotions in that moment, and it can be a little traumatic sometimes, because you're just doing your day-to-day on Facebook, because Facebook is a space for the living, right? In reality, that's what it is, and so when things like that come up, it can be emotional, whereas, you know, like when you're putting something on a space, like an online memorial, and it's, you're going there with an intention, just like you go drive to the cemetery, you're going, you know what you're doing, you're going to visit someone, you're going to be reflecting in that space, and you kind of get yourself emotionally ready for that. That's kind of what the online memorial does, is it's like a safe space. It's like, you know that that's why you're going, and it's designed to feel comforting. I just recently deleted the text messages that one of my friends sent me, who passed away seven years ago, and I just figured I needed to do this for myself, and I hit the lead and off it went. All the messages he had sent me over seven years, gone. Was that a smart thing to do, emotional thing to do? What do you think? Look, everyone has their way of grieving, and if that was a way that you needed to be able to kind of let go and move past it, then it's never a bad idea. Something I see people do the most, and what they cling on to the most is old voicemails. We have people who will upload those old voicemails so that they don't get lost. The amount of people that go back and listen to the last voicemail that their loved one sent them, it's so emotional, but it's also like, such a beautiful thing to have that. So, you know, it's one of those things that it can be painful at first, and then bring you comfort, but if it never ends up bringing you comfort, then, you know, removing it is, it's not a bad idea. Yeah. Share with us, Mandy, a story of a positive keeper situation, and then tell us one that was negative because somebody never did it. Gosh, that's a good question. So, one of the positives I would have to say, so one of the services we also offer is virtual funerals. We started this, of course, during COVID, where we have a team that will plan, coordinate, build everything for a memorial service that'll happen online. And interestingly enough, this is something that folks are still doing because families are in different parts of the world, right? And so it allows people to get together. And so what we do is we build up the memorial page, and then that gives us a lot of, you know, wonderful content for the memorial service as well. And so we had one, it was a dad, I think he was like, maybe like in the 70s, and he passed away, and he had three daughters. And I think it was, you know, a bit of a tumultuous relationship. You can kind of get the vibe from the family, but they really wanted to remember their dad. And one of the things we did, and one of the things that kind of just lived on, was that he loved an old-fashioned. And so what we did is we actually- That's the drink you're talking about. The cocktail, yes, an old-fashioned cocktail, yes. And we brought in a bartender, a great bartender, and he went on video. We told everyone in advance to have certain ingredients at home. And he taught us the history of it, and we all made it together on camera, and we prepared it, and while we prepared it, we all, everyone spoke about memories of it, and memories of, you know, the first time they were forced to make one for him, or they had one, their first one with him, or had their first sip with him, and they all got together and did this activity. And it was just such a beautiful healing experience for everyone, but it was also so fun and so memorable. And so that was a really lovely story. Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at 1 a.m. Eastern, and go to coast2coastam.com for more.
