Tender's online tool helps open the door to difficult conversations about death

One of the central aims of Port Kembla’s Tender Funerals is to encourage people to have conversations about death and dying.

To help “open a door” to what can often be a difficult conversation, Tender Australia has launched a free online tool that director Jennifer Briscoe-Hough describes as a “conversation with yourself”.

The End-of-Life Notebook – A Wayfinding Guide helps people to record personalised notes and wishes about their life, death and funeral. Information entered can be downloaded into a Word booklet, leaving space for confidential information or new ideas, which can be typed or handwritten into the document.

Just days after it was launched, more than 2000 people had already visited the site.

Jenny said the tool made it easy to think about what is important for end-of-life plans, what information needed to be passed on and what legal matters had to be attended to.

“Lots of people are doing this end-of-life planning, but we wanted to do it in the context of the last stage of your life where you think, oh, there’s less time ahead of me than behind,” she said.

“It’s an opportunity to think about what are the things you want to do, what are the unresolved relationships you want to make sure are solid, or the conversations you might need to rekindle.

“The idea was to put it in the context of connection, rather than, funnily enough, disconnection, which is what death can feel like.”

Tender Funerals is a not-for-profit service that aims to ensure all Australians have access to affordable and meaningful funerals.

Tender started operating from Port Kembla’s old fire station in 2016 and now also operates in Canberra and the NSW Mid North Coast. A further 11 communities around Australia are in the process of establishing Tender Funerals.

“The paperwork of a funeral can be challenging because you need to know things that you might not know, like the person who’s died, [what’s] their father’s occupation, things like numbers of marriages, children, children who may have died, or when they died,” Jenny said.

“It’s also about financial planning, like have you got money put away for your funeral, have you thought about that? It’s information that’s going to take away worry.”

As well as prompting questions about the practical aspects, the notebook also acts as a “self reckoner”, asking you to consider things you want to do before you die – a list of things for a fulfilling life.

“The documents are designed to have a conversation first and foremost with yourself,” Jenny said.

“It’s a reckoning time – you could do that reckoning and say, I’m completely happy, I’m on track, I’m doing what I want to do. Or you could do that reckoning and say something needs to change now.

“I don’t think it’s ever too early to do it, because you might think at 40, these are the things I’m going to want to do in my life. So how am I going to financially plan for those things? What’s my work life going to look like? Have I communicated the fact to my family or my friends that that’s in my wish list?

“It can also be a tool for having those conversations that might feel a bit tricky – you can say to people, ‘Look, I’ve got this thing I’ve decided to do and it made me think about X’.

“It opens a door and the way you walk through that door is up to you. You might do a quick go-through and then download it and leave it on the desktop and you might never talk to anyone about it, but you’ve done it.”

Jenny said however the notebook was used, it was just as important to let people know where to find it after your death.

“It’s a kind thing to do, a real kindness to let people know what you’d like to happen after you die,” she said. ”It’s also a kindness to let them know the practicalities, like all the bank account numbers, all the things that people scramble with when somebody dies.”

To access the End-of-Life Notebook, which is available on both iOS and Android platforms, click here.