By Nora Hertel, Erica Dischino on Jan 28, 2025

Community Voices ⎸ Project Optimist staff plan for the end — and it feels good

Life goals: Complete health care directives, draft a will, and enroll in life insurance in 2025.

End-of-Life Community voices

Nora Hertel, left, executive director of Project Optimist, and Erica Dischino, visual storyteller, will complete advance care directives in 2025. (Courtesy of Mia McGill)

Visual Storyteller Erica Dischino and Executive Director Nora Hertel will share their journey in 2025 as they “get their affairs in order.” Both have landmark birthdays.

Nora turns 40 and feels behind on these tasks, but, well, adulting is hard. Erica turns 30 and participates to model that it’s really not so painful. They plan to end the year with advance directives (AKA health care directives), wills, and life insurance.

We have prizes for folks who join us on this journey. Email jen@projectoptimist.news if you’re up for it!

Follow along here for an update on their progress each month in 2025. And subscribe to the Project Optimist newsletter for stories about end-of-life planning and how it’s different for different communities and faith groups.

Project Optimist's End-of-Life series is supported by a grant from the Morgan Family Foundation.

February 25, 2025

A man and a woman smile for a selfie. The background of the photo has leaves changing color in fall. — Macklin Caruso, left, and Erica Dischino pose for a selfie surrounded by fall color. (Courtesy of Erica Dischino)

Find humor in the process

By Erica Dischino
Project Optimist

My husband, Mack, wants to be taxidermied when he dies. More specifically, he wants to be stuffed, then passed down as a family heirloom.

When I told him we needed to have a conversation about end-of-life planning, his lips curled into a facetious grin.

“Well, everything I want is illegal,” he said.

We both cackled. Thinking about death is overwhelming. Every decision feels weighted. But really, the only thing we can do is laugh about it.

I pulled out the health care directive I picked up last month from my doctor’s office.

“OK, one more thing before we start,” he said.

He quickly began playing John Prine’s song, “Please Don’t Bury Me.”

We rifled through the health care directive document that discussed CPR, withholding treatment, and autopsies.

John Prine must’ve selected “yes” to organ donation. I could hear his voice singing:

Please don’t bury me
Down in the cold, cold ground.
No, I’d rather have ’em cut me up
And pass me all around.
Throw my brain in a hurricane,
And the blind can have my eyes,
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don’t mind the size.

It’s hard for me to imagine the moment when these decisions will have to be made. Odds are Mack will most likely be the one making them (he is my primary health care agent, now). Checking a box for my own body felt daunting. The thought of Mack having to check a box for me felt like a gut punch.

Preparing for the worst is hard, but having guidance and direct communication with my loved ones makes thinking about my end of life a bit easier.

At least I don’t want to be taxidermied.

🩺

Find advance care directive paperwork online from Honoring Choices, a Minnesota nonprofit organization that advocates for people to complete their advance planning.

An image of a flower with yellowish orange petals. — "I want to give back to the earth that made me," writes Nora Hertel. (Colleen Harrison for Project Optimist)

I want to feed the flowers

By Nora Hertel
Project Optimist

I wrote the first draft of my will this week, and I felt a little weird dictating where I’d like my remains to rest when I die.

I’ve been talking about funerals a lot lately because of this project, and it’s brought up some lively conversation and some big laughs. One acquaintance told me his mother-in-law wants to be cremated on a funeral pyre – Viking style.

My preference is for the greenest option. Something that doesn’t release greenhouse gas emissions.

Years ago I listened to a podcast about human composting from Science Vs and found it incredibly moving (so moving in fact that I’ve even imagined making that my next business venture).

If composting is an option when I die, I’ll take it. If it’s not, I vote for a natural burial. I want to give back to the earth that made me.

And it feels good to say so. Now I know that my family and friends don’t have to guess at what I want for my final send-off.

January 28, 2025

Woman with dark hair holds up advance directive paperwork outside of a health clinic in winter - snow is on the ground. — Project Optimist Visual Storyteller Erica Dischino poses with advance directive paperwork outside of her medical provider's office. (Courtesy of Erica Dischino)

We start this major adulting challenge

By Erica Dischino
Project Optimist

My newsfeed tends to highlight the latest trends in diet, exercise, and wellness routines whenever January comes around. The New Year often brings a flurry of hopeful intentions that eventually results in disappointment.

My resolution is a bit different for 2025. Instead of hoping for the best, I’m planning for the worst. And actually, I feel better because of it.

Currently, I’m establishing an advance directive with my husband, Mack. I’ve got a long way to go, but I’ll move slowly and carefully.

The first step was to head to my local doctor’s office and ask for information.

I don’t know what motivates you, but going to the doctor’s office to pick up an advance directive information packet is definitely not something that gets me geared up.

I had to do three things to get myself there:

Tell the Project Optimist team that I was going. I’m a woman of my word!
Put a reminder on my calendar.
Get a treat after. My treat was going to the nearby antique store.

Walking in the doctor’s, I felt a bit self-conscious. Am I too young to be doing this? Looking around the room, no one seemed to notice or care. The person at the front desk gave me a packet and voilà, I had done it.

Next up: discuss the information with Mack.

The best form of self-care is preparing yourself and loved ones for when things go wrong. Peace of mind is the greatest wellness hack. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.

Woman with dark hair holds advance directive paperwork before getting it notarized at city hall. — Project Optimist Founder and Executive Director Nora Hertel poses before getting her health care directive notarized. (Courtesy of Nora Hertel)

One step down, more to go

By Nora Hertel
Project Optimist

I enter this project with a head start.

I have a legal version of my advance directive that I started and finished THIS MONTH. Proof that it doesn’t require a lot of time or effort.

I had a medical procedure in mid-January that required anesthesia, and the clinic requested my health care directive. I had the form from my doctor’s office. I filled it out over the course of a week. And then I got it notarized at City Hall. Bing, bang, boom.

But it’s not quite right.

I still need to research what happens when someone is on life support. I’m honestly not sure what I want in that situation. When I think of it, I get flashes of sensational TV news sequences about Terri Schiavo. Yes, I’m a child of the ‘90s, and the controversy around Schaivo’s life support stuck in my mind.

I also want to research more to decide if I’d like to donate my body to science.

Then I need to pluck up the courage to discuss all this with my closest family and friends.

My next steps: Research. Get new advance care directive forms for myself and my spouse, Ben. And discuss the document with him.

These blog posts were edited by Jen Zettel-Vandenhouten.

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